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Velocity Global raises $400M in Series B growth round

Velocity Global

Eldridge and Norwest Venture Partners lead funding round Achieves multi-billion dollar valuation, a 7x increase in one year Investment boosts the company’s Global Work Platform™ that enables businesses and talent to work with anyone, anywhere, anyhow Velocity Global, the leading provider of global talent solutions, announced today that it raised $400 million in its Series B funding round, increasing the company’s valuation seven-fold since the same time last year. This second round of funding is led by Eldridge and Norwest Venture Partners which join Series A investor FFL Partners on Velocity Global’s board to lend their deep expertise in the areas of technology, future of work and global scale. The company retains majority ownership and founder Ben Wright continues as CEO and chair of the board of directors. “This is a pivotal moment for our company in the midst of a paradigm shift for employers and talent,” said Wright. “Access to work is no longer limited by borders or the star you are born under as the adoption of global talent accelerates. In March, we tripled the number of new supported talent on our platform compared to the same time last year, and the momentum continues to build. Eldridge and Norwest Venture Partners join FFL Partners to invest in people’s lives and the future of business. Massive kudos to our team for this achievement on our way to even greater heights.” Profitable since its founding in 2014, Velocity Global more than doubled its client roster over the past year, tripled the number of new supported talent on its platform, and will reach an annual net revenue run rate of $200 million by midyear as it continues to scale rapidly. “Velocity Global’s proven technology platform is positioned to transform the future of work, offering businesses a frictionless solution for building and expanding their teams,” said Todd Boehly, co-founder and CEO of Eldridge. “We are proud to partner with Ben and his team as demand continues to grow for best-in-class workforce solutions that support organizations looking to scale across the globe.” Parker Barrile, partner at Norwest Venture Partners, joins the Velocity Global board as a director. Barrile is the former vice president of product at LinkedIn who oversaw 20-fold growth as the company went public. “Velocity Global has a rare mix of scale, growth, and profitability that attracted us to be part of the next phase,” said Barrile. “The company is led by a strong leadership team with an ambitious roadmap, and we look forward to partnering with them as they accelerate the future of work.” The company’s Global Work Platform™ seamlessly connects employers and talent worldwide through proprietary cloud-based talent management technology, personalized expertise, and unmatched global scale. The platform offers a full suite of talent solutions, including global Employer of Record (EoR) and Contractor Management, to help thousands of companies compliantly onboard, manage, and pay full-time and part-time talent, contractors, and freelancers in more than 185 countries and all 50 United States. Velocity Global serves more than 1,200 clients and over 7,000 supported employees worldwide. The Velocity Global team is more than 700 employees strong in 47 countries across six continents with plans to more than double the number of employees by the end of the year. In 2021, the company successfully completed acquisitions of iWorkGlobal and Shield GEO that added capabilities to its Global Work Platform. Velocity Global will use the funds to continue enhancing the customer experience for both businesses and talent. The company will make further strategic investments in technology, sales and marketing, as well as potential future acquisitions to execute on its vision to provide a frictionless solution for businesses and talent to work with anyone, anywhere, anyhow. FT Partners served as exclusive strategic and financial advisor to Velocity Global on this transaction. About Velocity Global Velocity Global accelerates the future of work for anyone, anywhere, anyhow. Its Global Work Platform™ simplifies the employer and talent experience through its proprietary cloud-based talent management technology, backed by personalized expertise and unmatched global scale. The platform offers a full suite of talent solutions, including global Employer of Record and Contractor Management, to help companies onboard, manage, and pay talent in more than 185 countries and all 50 United States. Thousands of brands rely on Velocity Global to build international teams without the cost or complexity of setting up foreign legal entities or state registrations. Velocity Global was named a "Leader" in Global Employer of Record Services by prominent analyst firm NelsonHall. Founded in 2014, the company has hundreds of employees across six continents. For more information, visit velocityglobal.com. About Eldridge Eldridge invests in businesses across the Insurance, Asset Management, Technology, Mobility, Sports & Gaming, Media & Music, Real Estate, and Consumer landscapes. The firm seeks to build and grow businesses led by proven management teams that have demonstrated leadership and experience to scale an enterprise. Eldridge is headquartered in Greenwich, Connecticut, with additional offices in Beverly Hills, New York, and London. To learn more about Eldridge, please visit www.eldridge.com. About Norwest Venture Partners Norwest is a leading venture and growth equity investment firm managing more than $12.5 billion in capital. Since its inception, Norwest has invested in more than 650 companies and currently partners with more than 200 companies in its venture and growth equity portfolio. The firm invests in early- to late-stage businesses across a wide range of sectors with a focus on consumer, enterprise and healthcare. The Norwest team offers a deep network of connections, operating experience, and a wide range of impactful services to help CEOs and founders scale their businesses. Norwest has offices in Palo Alto and San Francisco, with subsidiaries in India and Israel. For more information, please visit www.nvp.com. Follow Norwest on Twitter @NorwestVP. Contact Details Corporate Communications Anja Koltes +1 720-650-4348 news@velocityglobal.com Eldridge Nadia Damouni +1 212-518-8012 ndamouni@prosek.com Norwest Venture Partners Kate Dishaw +1 650-321-8000 kdishaw@nvp.com Company Website https://velocityglobal.com/

May 18, 2022 07:01 AM Mountain Daylight Time

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My Code Appoints Award-Winning Strategic Leader Ginny Yang as Vice President of Marketing

My Code

My Code, the largest multicultural digital media platform in the United States that enables brands, agencies, publishers and storytellers to decode and connect with multifaceted and diverse audiences, today announced the appointment of Ginny Yang as Vice President of Marketing. Yang brings nearly two decades of expertise and leadership in publishing, tech and entertainment and will lead My Code’s marketing initiatives to further support the company’s growth at a pivotal time in multicultural advertising. In her new role at My Code, Yang will be directly responsible for developing and driving the company’s product positioning, messaging and thought leadership. She will define the roadmap for new category offerings with the objective of accelerating growth and driving client satisfaction. Yang, a graduate of Brown University and Columbia Business School, has worked at leading media and publishing companies, including G/O Media, HuffPost, The New York Times, Viacom’s MTV Networks and most recently, Viant Technology. Her specialties lie in digital advertising, content marketing, sales development and brand management. “Over the course of her career, Ginny has built strategic partnerships, executed effective campaigns and led successful teams,” said Jennifer White, COO of My Code. “We happily welcome the addition of Ginny to our team, especially as we enter our next phase of growth as a company. We’re building our presence in the market and her unique expertise, which has been collected throughout her extensive career and conveyed through her dynamic leadership style, will help us get there.” Yang has deep experience overseeing and executing high-impact initiatives, having led the development of the first native advertising campaign at The New York Times with Dell during her time at the company. While at G/O Media, she launched The Root Institute with Target, which was recognized as a Webby Award Finalist. She also has experience leading Emmy-Award winning programs, as she managed the online community, Think MTV, for young activists at Viacom, which ultimately received the award for Best Community Service Campaign. “Bringing authenticity to multicultural marketing is crucial and something I’m excited to focus on in my new role,” said Yang. “I’m looking forward to having the opportunity to work alongside minority-owned and led publishers and creators to help brands engage diverse audiences in a genuine way and bring visibility to these groups.” The addition of Yang to My Code’s leadership team comes at a time when the company is quickly growing in size and expanding its offerings. Most recently, My Code announced its acquisition of Impremedia, the leading Hispanic news and information company, making My Code the owner of the most widely-read and respected Spanish-language daily newspapers and digital media outlets in the United States. My Code also added W Code to its growing suite of established and notable Cultural and Affinity Codes in March, a new entity for brands to deliver authentic messaging to the increasingly diverse female profiles. It plans to continue broadening this list, which is also inclusive of H Code, B Code, and A Code, reaching Hispanic, Black and AAPI audiences, to provide visibility and empowerment to diverse communities and audiences. To learn more about My Code, please visit www.mycodemedia.com. About My Code My Code is a digital media company that enables brands, agencies, publishers, and storytellers to decode and connect with multifaceted and diverse audiences. My Code was formed following the expansion of H Code, a 2x Inc. 5000-ranked company founded in 2015, into additional demographics beyond Hispanic consumers. With a diverse team of marketers, sellers, researchers, and storytellers specializing in an ever-growing selection of Cultural and Affinity Codes, My Code helps companies of all sizes reach millions of Hispanic, Black, and AAPI consumers with unmatched authenticity. My Code combines proprietary insights from its Intelligence Center, first-party targetable datasets, and custom creative to deliver unparalleled multimedia content that effectively reaches diverse audiences across the digital landscape. Having evolved from its Hispanic-centric origins, My Code is now a robust, minority-dominant organization dedicated to the economic empowerment of the diverse communities and audiences it represents. Its purpose-driven media marketplace allows advertisers to easily invest in minority-owned and led publishers, creators, and producers. Today, My Code’s employee base is 85% multicultural, 70% Hispanic/Latinx, and 50% female across its offices in the U.S. and Latin America. Contact Details North 6th Agency for My Code +1 212-334-9753 mycode@n6a.com Company Website https://mycodemedia.com/

May 18, 2022 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Pencil partners with BigCommerce & Meta to bring AI-generated ads to ecommerce merchants

Pencil

Creative AI company Pencil has partnered with new-era ecommerce platform BigCommerce to provide their merchants with the latest innovation in online advertising for ecommerce, AI-generated ads. Rather than spending hours in video editing software or engaging expensive professional agencies, BigCommerce merchants can now generate original video ads to pitch their businesses in just a few clicks. Furthermore, AI-generated ads trained using data from advertisers’ Meta ad accounts via the Meta Marketing API have been shown to consistently double return on ad spend for brands and halve customer acquisition costs. BigCommerce merchants using Pencil’s AI-generated ads will be able to discover new audiences on Meta’s platforms and grow their businesses faster. Matt Dornfeld, Director of Business Development at BigCommerce commented: “As part of our mission to help merchants sell more at every stage of growth, we are delighted to welcome Pencil into our partner ecosystem. We’ve seen that ecommerce marketers across the board know that great advertising creative is an important lever to growing their businesses. We’ve also seen that they consistently find it challenging to execute at scale. We are therefore excited to see Pencil offer BigCommerce merchants powerful AI tools to generate ad creative, thus unblocking a key driver of sales growth.” Pencil’s AI-generated ads work because they prioritize both creativity and data. When a merchant connects their BigCommerce store, Pencil analyzes their brand and product information and generates a wide variety of ad ideas to pitch their products. When a merchant then connects their Meta advertising data, Pencil compares the newly generated ideas to what’s worked well in the past. Those ideas similar to past winners are highlighted to the merchant. In this way Pencil helps merchants learn what works while continuously exploring fresh new creative ideas that might resonate with audiences. Pencil analyzed over 100 ecommerce campaigns that used AI-generated ads and found the best ads delivered an average return on ad spend (ROAS) 2x that of other ads the brands were running. One brand’s AI-generated ad campaign delivered 7x higher ROAS. Will Hanschell, CEO and co-founder of Pencil commented: “BigCommerce is an incredibly innovative ecommerce platform used by major midmarket and enterprise brands around the world. This direct integration removes one of the biggest frictions they experience - turning the product images and videos in their stores into ads that deliver sales. We are very excited to partner with BigCommerce to further enable brands to build their businesses online.” This partnership announcement comes hot on the heels of Pencil joining Meta’s Business Partners, a program that connects businesses to an ecosystem of advertising specialists. More than 200 million businesses worldwide use Meta’s apps to connect with customers and grow, and over 10 million of them run advertising campaigns each month. Pencil leverages proprietary technology to generate video, derive insights and make predictions, as well as integrating the OpenAI API to generate ad copy. The OpenAI API provides access to GPT-3, one of the world’s most powerful language models. Its use requires strict criteria in AI safety and ethics. About Pencil Pencil is a Creative AI company on a mission to generate unexpected ideas that get results. Pencil generates ads that learn to perform, delivering the return on ad spend that helps brands scale their businesses. Pencil’s AI-generated ads are a new way of making ads that algorithmically optimise for creative novelty, brand relevance and return on advertising spend. It always starts from a human brief and it always involves total human editorial control. Pencil’s Creative AI platform generates ads in minutes and has been shown to double returns for brands. Pencil was founded in 2018 with a team from Google, Meta and Uber and is backed by Sequoia Capital India’s Surge, Wavemaker Partners, Singapore Innovate and Entrepreneur First. For further information visit: https://www.trypencil.com About BigCommerce BigCommerce (Nasdaq: BIGC) is a leading open software-as-a-service (SaaS) ecommerce platform that empowers merchants of all sizes to build, innovate and grow their businesses online. BigCommerce provides merchants sophisticated enterprise-grade functionality, customization and performance with simplicity and ease-of-use. Tens of thousands of B2C and B2B companies across 150 countries and numerous industries use BigCommerce to create beautiful, engaging online stores, including Ben & Jerry’s, Molton Brown, S.C. Johnson, Skullcandy, SoloStove, Ted Baker and Vodafone. Headquartered in Austin, BigCommerce has offices in London, Kyiv, San Francisco, and Sydney. For more information, please visit https://www.bigcommerce.com or follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and Facebook. About Meta Business Partners Meta Business Partners are companies Meta has vetted for their expertise. They have the experience to help grow advertisers’ business – from running ads, to selling products, to engaging with customers. For more information visit: https://www.facebook.com/business/marketing-partners Contact Details Pencil Bilal Mahmood +44 7714 007257 b.mahmood@stockwoodstrategy.com Company Website https://www.trypencil.com/

May 17, 2022 09:00 AM Pacific Daylight Time

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Verità Announces Acquisition of Nomad Tower Services LLC and $6 Million Investment in New Facility

Verità Telecommunications Corporation

Verità Telecommunications has acquired Nomad Tower Services LLC in Romulus, Michigan. Nomad executes a full range of microwave and cellular network deployment services in Michigan and the Midwest states. Moving forward, Nomad Tower Services, LLC. will operate as a division of Verità. Along with the purchase of Nomad, Verità is moving ahead with a $6 million dollar investment in a new facility in Wayne County. The move directly aligns with Verità’s mission to support the growing needs of the Great Lakes and Midwest States that will ultimately bridge the digital divide. Verità has planned a $6-million investment at a 10-acre site that will include a 40,000 -60,000 sq. ft. facility to support the company’s continued growth and advancement. The acquisition of Nomad Tower Services LLC. extends Verità’s offerings by adding turnkey tower services and an additional 10 crews to keep Verità on-track for building the infrastructure for reliable internet access throughout the Great Lake states and Midwestern states. With the addition of Nomad Tower Services LLC., Verità is now a full spectrum telecom company, providing customers with a full suite of services from design to final tower implementation. “The next 2 years we are growing our crews from 6 to 16 for this initiative, upgrading existing towers, 5G network and building new towers. A growing work force includes 10 additional teams, that equate to 50 new employees, working to a common goal of bridging the digital divide.” added Verità President, Michael Falsetti. “Verità will provide a single-source solution and differentiating advantage to our clients, carriers; AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Dish, getting them into the market ahead of the competition and ultimately a part of the solution for the digital divide”, says President, Michael Falsetti. Verità is projecting an increase of revenue from $10 million to $25 million in this division with a forecast of $100 million for next year. The expansion advances the opportunity for economic growth in Wayne County, as well as Verità’s service offerings. The integration of services and talent fuel the vision for this major initiative with various carriers to build out their sites with 5G, including the rural areas throughout the decade to provide meaningful internet connectivity. The larger team and turnkey addition of services provides flexibility that supports growth and development creating job diversity, employee advancement and career opportunities. “We take pride in providing a culture that supports relationships and becoming a part of Verità as a family-oriented business. We put relationships first and value personal relationships with our team and customers. We are excited to be a part of Verità’s extended family” said Kylar Damon, Nomad Tower President. The Verità Way will chart a course for our clients and employee advancement and success. “Together we will build meaningful connectivity through access to reliable internet while supporting job growth in the Great Lakes States with a career that can advance with Technology.” About Verità Telecommunications Corporation Plymouth, Michigan-based Verità Corporation is a turnkey telecommunications contractor offering a one-stop-shop for design and construction of telecommunications networks. Verità provides tomorrow’s communications infrastructure today. Learn more about The Verità Way™ in thought, action, and operation at veritacorp.com. Contact Details Douglas Marketing Group Kay Douglas +1 248-940-8004 kdouglas@experiencedmg.com Amanda Iera +1 313-571-1858 aiera@experiencedmg.com Company Website https://veritacorp.com/

May 17, 2022 11:56 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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Telos Offers Fast-Tracked Grants To Support Terra Developers

Telos Foundation

The Telos community offers its sympathy and full support to Terra developers for the hardships endured during this tumultuous period. In light of this, Telos welcomes all Terra dApps to join the 12 million TLOS Ignite grant and ventures program. The team will fast-track applications from Terra dApps seeking refuge with investments, marketing support, and technical assistance. Terra developers are encouraged to communicate with Telos' team via Discord, Telegram, or apply for a grant directly through the following link: https://ignite.telos.net “We feel for the talented teams and projects that have fallen victim to the collapse of Terra. We know many of you are long-term builders of the Web 3 future, and for those that are looking for a blockchain that shares your long-term vision, you will find an amazing home at Telos.” AJ Dinger, Telos Head of Business Development If the abundance of congested, pausing, and, more recently, failing blockchain networks has taught us anything, it's that dApp developers must choose wisely when finding a home to deploy their dApps. The Telos Mainnet has been live with zero downtime since 2018, can finalize a billion transactions per day with zero carbon footprint, and is home to the world's most robust EVM. We look forward to working with LUNA developers to help foster uncharted growth with the support of our team and a purely grassroots community. About Telos Live since 2018, Telos Blockchain (ticker: TLOS) is a third-generation smart contract platform that offers compatibility with Solidity, Vyper, and Native C++ smart contracts. Telos provides full EVM/Solidity support with fixed low-cost gas fees and no front running and, more uniquely, offers a path to fee-less transactions via its robust native C++ smart contract support. Even while operating as a Net Zero Blockchain, Telos still sustainably supports hundreds of millions of transactions per day, produces blocks in 0.5 second intervals (on a first-in-first-out basis, eliminating front running on the network), and securely validates transactions via a credibly neutral and globally decentralized block producer network. As a result, the Telos blockchain has the throughput needed to facilitate and scale the thriving Metaverse / Web 3.0 landscape better than any other blockchain in existence. Its performance is unrivaled in the industry and was purpose-built to offer speed, scalability, cost-effectiveness, credible decentralization, and end-user fairness. Telos harnesses its power by utilizing tight C++ on the frontend and a custom WASM runtime environment on the backend. About The Foundation The Telos Foundation is a Decentralized Autonomous Organization established as a promotional and funding body to advance the Telos Blockchain Network and provide support to network applications. Contact Details The Team hello@telosfoundation.io Company Website https://www.telos.net/

May 17, 2022 10:06 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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Underline Science Closes Pre-Series A Round To Further Advance Scholarly Research With The Growth Of The Digital Video Library

Underline Science Inc

Most industries have progressed from paper to all forms of content; how is it that one of our most essential industries, science, is staying behind. This is something Underline's founder doesn't understand, and therefore he will change it with the launch of the Underline Digital Video Library (DVL). With a considerable track record, this multi-accomplished founder is now taking on the big publishers in a way that hasn't been seen before as a premier aggregator of streaming scientific conference lecture video content. Together with his team of industry leaders, Underline is aiming to transcend the industry into the 21st century. The mission of Underline is to improve researchers' access to quality scientific conference lecture video content. Historically, if you did not attend a scientific conference, you would miss out on all of the conference's lectures. Underline's DVL contains 26,000+ videos (Health Sciences, Life Sciences, Engineering, Technology, Social Sciences, and Humanities). The video content from the world's prestigious scientific societies and universities, like IEEE, Endocrine, AIP, lecturers from MIT, Harvard, Facebook, Google, etc. Each video is complete with abstract, English transcription, bio, picture of the author, and most importantly, a DOI (digital object identifier), which ensures that the video can be searched and discovered. Today, the company announced that it had raised a $2.5 million Pre-Series A round of funding, led by South Central Ventures and the Dutch Founders Fund. As a result, Mr. Jure Mikuz (South Central Ventures) and Mr. Laurens Groenendijk (Dutch Founders Fund) will join the Underline Board of Directors. "With this new round of funding, we'll be able to enhance the Underline DVL features and content greatly. Further to grow the team and expand our go-to-market strategy," Underline CEO and founder Alex Lazinica said in a press release. "We are looking forward to increasing our penetration into the library, government and corporate, institutional subscription market." South Central Ventures, who led the round, Managing Partner Jure Mikuz, said, “Underline’s mission resonates with us very well as they are addressing a global opportunity of creating a library of global scientific video content. I believe they will be successful by facilitating their excellent execution skills and deep industry knowledge. We are very excited to join Underline on this journey.” Founding Partner Laurens Groenendijk of The Dutch Founders Fund states, " We believe that if Underline Science manages to tap into the apparent possible network effects, it can quickly grow to be the dominant player in science content aggregation. We at Dutch Founders hope to see “underlining become a verb”. If anyone is going to do it, We know a seasoned entrepreneur like Alex is. “ Underline's business model is an annual subscription fee for unlimited access to the entire Digital Video Library for the subscribing institution's community. About Underline Science Underline is the premier virtual conference platform for events in science, medicine, academia, and other professional fields. Underline’s mission is to capture and disseminate scientific knowledge through video, making it globally accessible by enriching and preserving both virtual and hybrid conference content. Underline’s groundbreaking scientific Digital Video Library is providing new opportunities to access and expand the scientific record and accelerate scientific discovery. For more information, visit the Underline website and follow Underline on Twitter. About South Central Ventures South Central Ventures is a VC investor with the longest presence in the Balkans. Operating out of four offices – Ljubljana, Zagreb, Belgrade and Skopje – the team has invested in about 40 early stage tech companies and has been an integral part of the local start up communities. With a strong base of international investors, South Central Ventures is a go-to investor for regional tech companies competing in global markets. SCV’s portfolio companies include Cognism, Celtra, Agrivi, Orgnostic and AdScanner, among others. About Dutch Founders Fund DutchFounders is an early-stage venture capital fund from Amsterdam, started by a group of successful Dutch entrepreneurs like Laurens Groenendijk (Just Eat, Treatwell, Miinto, Hiber), Patrick Kerssemakers (fonQ), Bas Beerens (WeTransfer), Hidde Hoogcarspel (Spacebuzz) and Remco van Zanten ( Booking, Zalando, Vinted and BCG). The fund specialises in marketplaces and companies with strong network effects. Since its launch in 2018, the fund has successfully invested in 16 companies. This includes: YourCampus, Shypple, Vintage Cash Cow, Lumaly, Blanco, Nostics, Reveall, Veylinx, Wonderkind, Voicebooking, Fleks, Minimum, Caya, Winc Academy, Buildstream and Tracedock (exited to CM.com). The total fund has almost €100 million assets under management. DutchFounders is a committed partner of Techleap’s Fundright initiative. ### Contact Details Underline Science, Inc. Darrell W Gunter +1 973-454-3475 darrell@underline.io Company Website https://www.underline.io/

May 17, 2022 09:30 AM Eastern Daylight Time

WellSaid Labs Named to the 2022 CB Insights AI 100 List of Most Innovative Artificial Intelligence Startups

WellSaid Labs

CB Insights today named WellSaid Labs to its annual AI100 ranking, showcasing the 100 most promising private artificial intelligence companies in the world. "This is the sixth year that CB Insights has recognized the most promising private artificial intelligence companies with the AI 100. This year's cohort spans 13 industries, working on everything from recycling plastic waste to improving hearing aids," said Brian Lee, SVP of CB Insights’ Intelligence Unit. "Last year's AI 100 companies had a remarkable run, raising more than $6 billion, including 20 mega-rounds worth more than $100 million each. We’re excited to watch the companies on this year’s list continue to grow and create products and services that meaningfully impact the world around them.” “WellSaid Labs is extremely proud that CB Insights has again recognized our team as top in AI Media. This honor reflects WellSaid’s mission commitment to delivering the world’s highest quality AI voice for all by enabling content creators to easily generate engaging voice content for education, training and instructional videos for internal communications, consumer media and other creative business uses,” said Matt Hocking, CEO of WellSaid Labs. Utilizing the CB Insights platform, the research team picked 100 private market vendors from a pool of over 7,000 companies, including applicants and nominees. They were chosen based on factors including R&D activity, proprietary Mosaic scores, market potential, business relationships, investor profile, news sentiment analysis, competitive landscape, team strength, and tech novelty. The research team also reviewed thousands of Analyst Briefings submitted by applicants. In June 2020, WellSaid Labs' text-to-speech became the first to achieve human parity for naturalness on short audio clips across multiple voices. WellSaid Labs has rearchitected TTS to resolve business’ toughest content development problems and deliver an easy way for content creators — big or small — to develop all their desired content in one consistent voice. WellSaid Labs’ Voice Avatar library provides access to multiple read styles and tones anyone can use for their productions. Brands of all sizes can create their own AI Voice Avatars to spec — capturing the likeliness, style, and uniqueness of the voice needed to tell their stories the right way. Quick facts on the 2022 AI 100: Equity funding and deals: Since 2017, the 2022 AI 100 cohort has raised $12 billion+ from 650 investors, across 300+ equity deals. Unicorns: There are 16 companies with $1 billion+ valuations on the list. Geographic distributions: Seventy-three of the selected companies are headquartered in the US. Eight of the winners are based in the UK, followed by five in Canada. Other countries represented in this year’s list include India, Sweden, China, and Germany. About CB Insights CB Insights builds software that enables the world's best companies to discover, understand, and make technology decisions with confidence. By marrying data, expert insights, and work management tools, clients manage their end-to-end technology decision-making process on CB Insights. To learn more, please visit www.cbinsights.com. About WellSaid Labs WellSaid Labs is the leading AI text-to-speech technology company and first synthetic media service to achieve human-parity in voice. Creators, product developers, and brands alike power up their stories and digital experiences with a wide variety of voice styles, accents, and languages — at scale. For more information go to www.wellsaidlabs.com Contact Details Faith Brewitt +1 603-686-0913 Faith@wellsaidlabs.com Company Website https://wellsaidlabs.com/

May 17, 2022 09:04 AM Eastern Daylight Time

tvScientific Partners with Adjust for CTV Integration

tvScientific

“We are thrilled to partner with tvScientific to deliver comprehensive CTV measurement for mobile app marketers in a reliable, transparent, and scalable way,” said Gijsbert Pols, director of connected TV and new channels at Adjust. “As viewers take on an increasingly more active role in their content consumption, it’s paramount for marketers to measure success across screens against their set KPIs for increased optimization of campaign performance.” Leading, connected TV performance advertising platform tvScientific, today announced its partnership with Adjust, the mobile marketing analytics platform pioneering in CTV measurement. The launch of the strategic partnership will now enable mobile app marketers to accelerate growth through the integration of CTV into omnichannel strategies. tvScientific’s self-managed platform simplifies and automates TV buying and optimization by gathering large amounts of granular first- and third-party data onto one platform. This allows marketers to target and assess their highest quality users from impression to post-install events. Leveraging tvScientific’s proprietary, deterministic ID technology, in tandem with Adjust’s attribution data, mobile marketers can now attribute cross-device, with full, holistic visibility into CTV impressions and its ability to drive installs. Marketers can then analyze performance of their campaigns inside Adjust, providing a complete picture of their UA marketing strategy across all channels. “We believe CTV represents the largest growth opportunity for app marketers. This partnership is designed to unlock that potential by providing unprecedented control, flexibility of media buying strategies and transparency at every point in the customer journey,” said Jason Fairchild, CEO at tvScientific. “Through tvScientific’s end-to-end solution, app marketers will be able to optimize omnichannel strategies and accelerate campaign performance.” Mobile marketers’ precision targeting capabilities are further enhanced through their ability to target across 15K unique audience segments, including age, gender, interests, and behavioral habits, or via pre-built audiences. Leveraging granular data, tvScientific enables mobile marketers to optimize their performance through campaign controls, data transparency down to log level, and automated optimization. Marketers will be able to increase campaign optimization and validation of ROI through Adjust’s ability to unify all marketing channels onto one platform. Additionally, marketers will be able to have adjusted insight into walled gardens through tvScientific’s always-on incrementality testing. tvScientific is the most sophisticated performance advertising platform built for connected TV. The tvScientific platform makes TV advertising accessible and measurable for brands and apps of all sizes. tvScientific offers a self-managed solution custom built for performance marketers, that simplifies and automates TV buying and optimization, leveraging massive data to prove the actual value of TV advertising. The platform reaches 95% of AVOD inventory using proprietary, deterministic ID technology to measure ad exposure to outcome in an approachable, radically transparent and scalable way. An Idealab company, tvScientific was co-founded by senior executives with deep roots in programmatic advertising, digital media, and ad verification. Today, the company continues to make strategic alignments with key players — the most recent being NBCUniversal — to advance CTV performance advertising forward. The company is headquartered in Pasadena, California. For more information, visit https://www.tvscientific.com. Adjust is the mobile marketing analytics platform trusted by growth-driven marketers around the world, with solutions for measuring and optimizing campaigns and protecting user data. Adjust powers thousands of apps with built-in intelligence and automation, backed by responsive global customer support.In 2021, Adjust was acquired by AppLovin, a leading marketing software company providing developers with a powerful, integrated set of solutions to grow their mobile apps. Learn more about Adjust at www.adjust.com. Contact Details Kite Hill PR Ernestine Belgrave +1 917-689-8488 ernestine@kitehillpr.com

May 17, 2022 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

Data Integrity Company Claravine Secures $16 Million in Series B Funding

Claravine

Claravine, a pioneer in data integrity with its platform, The Data Standards Cloud, announced a $16 million Series B funding round. The round was led by Five Elms Capital with participation from existing investors Grayhawk Capital, Next Frontier Capital, Peninsula Ventures, Kickstart Fund and Silverton Partners. This new funding will help Claravine meet its aggressive growth goal of doubling its headcount this year, accelerating product development, and investing in its integrations to automate data standards across digital experiences. Founded in 2012, Claravine empowers a proactive approach to data by activating standards across people and technology – bridging the silos that limit speed and decisions. The company has forged successful partnerships with well-known Fortune 1000 companies such as Under Armour, Ancestry and Vanguard and is currently working with a quarter of the Fortune 100. With a collaborative user interface and strategic integrations with top customer experience platforms such as Adobe and Google, The Data Standards Cloud helps global organizations define, apply and connect standards across their ecosystem for faster decisions, greater agility and increased ROI. This latest round of funding comes as Claravine continues to experience significant company growth. As first-party data becomes paramount and industry-wide demand grows for more solutions for data standardization, measurement, and personalization, Claravine is substantially expanding its integration library to be compatible with more of the major platforms powering digital advertising, including measurement solutions, creative optimization and customer data. Funding will also enable the company’s investment in talent and plans to hire key roles for teams in the disciplines of product management, engineering, sales, customer success and marketing. "CX-focused organizations are frustrated by an ever-growing trove of marketing data they can't trust or use in a timely way. There are many tools, workarounds, over-engineered spreadsheets, ETLs, etc. to manage the problem, but these only treat the symptoms,” said Verl Allen, CEO, Claravine. “We've been able to pioneer a new category by refocusing the process and developing a healthier overall organizational approach to data. Rather than being reactive and improving data quality after the fact, we help our customers proactively build in data integrity from the start using standards. We have found this approach to be most effective because, by controlling inputs, companies have the ability to adapt and react to any market change – including what the industry is experiencing with marketing measurement." “Claravine has carved out a new category that continues to redefine how top brands manage their digital experience. We have been exceptionally impressed by Verl, his team and their mission,” Stephanie Schneider, Partner at Five Elms Capital, said. “Claravine is positioned to become a dominant player in the space as it continues to scale its platform and offerings. We are proud to support the company on this exciting growth trajectory.” In addition to raising its Series B, Claravine was also recently named a “Momentum Leader” and “High Performer” in the Spring 2022 G2 Rankings. The company has ranked consecutively for the last five quarters in categories such as best relationship, support and easiest to do business in the enterprise relationship index for the data governance category. About Claravine Claravine is a pioneer in data integrity for the global enterprise. We empower a proactive approach to data by activating standards across people and technology, bridging the silos that limit speed and decisions across digital experiences. That’s why a quarter of the Fortune 100 use our platform, The Data Standards Cloud, to define, apply and connect standards across their ecosystem for faster decisions, greater agility, and increased ROI. For more information, visit www.claravine.com. About Five Elms Capital Five Elms Capital is a leading growth equity firm that invests in fast-growing B2B software businesses that users love. Five Elms provides capital and resources to help companies accelerate growth and further cement their role as industry leaders. For more information, visit www.fiveelms.com. Contact Details Michael Kocher Kite Hill PR claravine@kitehillpr.com Company Website https://www.claravine.com/

May 17, 2022 08:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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