The MarTech Minute: Litmus introduces a refresh, Altify acquired for $84 million

MarTech Minute briefs always appear first in our daily newsletter throughout the week. Click here to subscribe. The following is our compilation of the past week’s briefs from those newsletters.

New brand templates from Bynder. Digital asset management platform Bynder has released Digital Brand Templates and refreshed its Brand Guidelines platform. The newly launched brand templates allow users to turn Adobe Photoshop and Sketch files into reusable, customizable templates. “Marketers can quickly produce their own content for high-velocity channels like web banners and social media ads or customize existing designs, such as assets for market-specific or regionalized campaigns, without straying off brand,” writes Bynder. The enhanced Brand Guidelines platform offers marketers an online resource to manage compliance issues and brand standards across their library of assets. 

An intent detection tool from LivePerson. LivePerson, a conversational commerce solution, has launched a new intent detection tool called LiveIntent that helps brands detect, analyze and resolve customer intent in real-time. Part of LivePerson’s AI-powered conversational services platform, LiveEngage, the company says its LiveIntent technology can measure intent and determine what a customer wants in real-time via communications over a number of platforms, including SMS, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Apple Business Chat. “This is not just another text analytics suite. LiveIntent is integrated into our conversational platform to allow you to take action immediately,” said LivePerson Chief Scientist Joe Bradley. 

A refresh for Litmus. The email marketing solution Litmus has redesigned its platform to streamline the workflow process. The company says users can, “Create an email once, and then easily toggle between tools … without having to re-upload your email every single time you’d like to use a different tool.” According to Litmus, the redesign makes it easier to store and find project folders with flexible organizational structures that fit the user’s needs. Also multiple project status overviews can now be found in a centralized location via the new email Summary view that lets users set due dates, descriptions and update statuses for each email project. 

Upland Software acquires Altify for $84 million. Customer revenue optimization cloud solution Altify has been acquired by cloud-based enterprise work management software provider Upland Software. Altify will be added to Upland’s Sales Optimization Suite. “Built natively on Salesforce, Altify empowers revenue teams to build customer contacts, qualify deals, identify new and up-sell opportunities, and improve overall sales execution with guided selling,” said Jack McDonald, founder, chairman, and CEO of Upland Software. “This transaction is a core strategic addition, is immediately accretive to adjusted EBITDA per share, and takes Upland to a $259 million annualized revenue run rate and a $99 million annualized Adjusted EBITDA run rate. Our acquisition pipeline is robust, and we are actively pursuing additional opportunities to build out our solution suites.”

Search engine startup raises $110 million. In its Series C round, Algolia has raised $110 million, bringing the startup’s total funding to over $184 million. This round of funding was led by Accel, with Salesforce Ventures also participating as a new investor. “Algolia is accelerating innovation in personalized and intelligent search, enabling companies to deliver a great user experience that drives improved business results,” said Accel partner and Algolia board member Nate Niparko. “We are excited to double down on Algolia and support their mission to lead the search and discovery market.”

Gravity acquires agency firm Further Digital Marketing. Agency firm Further Digital Marketing is known for its expertise in data analysis, content marketing and SEO. With the acquisition, Gravity intends to leverage Further’s specialties to strengthen its existing focus on specialized services. Mark Lethbridge, Gravity’s chief executive, said, “We want to enable clients and their in-house marketing teams to go to one agency with all of the skill-sets and expertise to deliver truly connected customer experiences that are effective, efficient and drive accelerated performance across the entire marketing and sales value chain. The acquisition of Further strengthens a critical part of this strategy.”

CleverTap completes $35 million Series C funding. Customer lifecycle and user retention management platform CleverTap has announced the completion of its Series C investment round which raised $35 million. The new funding increases the company’s outside investments to $61 million since the beginning of 2019. “Leading companies know that the key to driving revenue growth in the mobile app space is increasing user retention and raising long-term customer lifetime value,” said Sunil Thomas, co-founder and CEO of CleverTap. “We’re in the unique position to deliver a holistic solution that not only provides actionable customer insights but also delivers the right message to drive deeper engagement based on real-time customer usage — all at scale. This latest round of funding will enable CleverTap to help more companies achieve their retention goals as they build long-lasting relationships with their customers.”

Terminus reveals updates to ABM platform. ABM platform provider Terminus has announced the latest release of its ABM platform updates which include AI-powered capabilities. “Since the rise of direct-response digital campaigns, marketers have been forced to choose between building long-term brand equity or driving short-term lead-based results,” said Bryan Brown, chief product officer at Terminus. “We want to end that dichotomy in B2B marketing by making it easier to tie every effort to the eventual customer relationship — and to measure based on mid and long-term revenue outcomes instead of just instant responses.”

No-code platform Autify raises $2.5 million. The seed round, which included Globe Brain, Salesforce Ventures, Archetype Ventures along with several angel investors, is expected to fuel development of Autify’s developer — and non-developer — friendly platform for testing web applications. According to CEO and co-founder Ryo Chikazawa, Autify is the only no-code, out-of-the-box application for marketers and developers to do testing.

Clearlake Capital and TA Associates acquire DigitCert. DigiCert, which recently authorized the first Verified Mark Certificate to CNN.com for email marketing, has been acquired by Clearlake Capital and TA Associates. “DigiCert is excited to work with Clearlake and TA Associates as our new lead investors, and to continue our leadership in providing the best TLS/SSL products and solutions, focused on improving and automating certificate management,” said DigiCert CEO John Merrill. “We are confident in our vision for growth and the increasing value we’ll bring to our customers.”

Invoca raises $56 million in new capital. AI-powered call tracking and conversational analytics platform Invoca announced it has raised $56 million in new capital, bringing the company’s total financing to $116 million. The financing was led by Upfront Ventures, H.I.G. Growth Partners, Accel and Morgan Stanley Alternative Investment Partners. “Invoca made a huge leap by applying AI to sales calls. Marketers now discover the ‘purchase intent’ of consumers similar to how valuable it is knowing the terms a lead has typed into a Google search,” said Mark Suster, managing partner at Upfront Ventures. “With computers in every customer’s pocket, calls have become an insanely important marketing channel for every brand.”