Wunderkind, a platform that facilitates brands in targeting web visitors via emails, texts, and other digital ad formats, has recently announced that it has raised $76 million in a Series C funding round.
The financial services company Neuberger Berman led the round. With this, the total raised amount for Wunderkind exceeds $150 million. The CEO of Wunderkind, Bill Ingram, stated that the newly raised funds would be utilized for product development, recruitment, and market expansion. Ingram further added that the company intends to invest heavily in AI and machine learning to expand its products beyond acquisition and conversion and continue growing Wunderkind while increasing the revenue growth of its customers.
Founded in 2010, Wunderkind aims to enhance the ability of brands to build customer relationships via digital channels. It does this by analyzing the real-time and historical behaviors of smartphone and desktop web visitors and matching value to intent. Wunderkind claims that it can identify visitors based on the web page that referred them and the content they are engaging with. The platform can also identify those most likely to purchase a paid subscription or sign up for a newsletter. The company also provides tools to launch triggered ad campaigns and create audience segments.
From a user perspective, Wunderkind’s product may sound a bit creepy. The case against behavioral marketing is mounting. However, for many companies, the results are well worth the potential controversy. According to a survey by the Network Advertising Initiative conducted with a dozen different ad networks, targeted advertisements based on user behavior converted 6.8% compared to non-targeted ads at 2.8%.
Wunderkind boasts a customer base of more than 1,000 brands and publishers in the luxury, direct-to-consumer, and tech spaces, including Rag & Bone, HelloFresh, Uniqlo, Sonos, and See’s Candy. In 2020, Wunderkind reported $100 million in annual recurring revenue. Last year, the company’s revenue grew 35% YoY. The company is positioned to grow the top line again this year.
Wunderkind, with an eye toward a more regulated, privacy-conscious ad future, plans to expand and launch a one-to-one messaging offering for ads to enable “cookieless” retargeting. Additionally, the company intends to introduce an improved “discovery” feature for e-commerce businesses that will provide product recommendations based on customer behaviors and interests.