Marketing technology platform BrightTag announced today a new $27 million round, an investment which is larger than all of its previous rounds combined, led by Yahoo! JAPAN.
Not only did Yahoo! JAPAN lead this momentous funding round, but the Internet giant also signed a long-term contract to use BrightTag’s new Fuse technology, which was just patented last month, to launch its data management platform in the spring.
“Yahoo! JAPAN picked our technology to power their data strategy,” BrightTag CEO Mike Sands said. “They are going to use us to connect all of their platforms and all of their customer interactions in the entire country of Japan, running them through our platform to power the next generation of marketing for their economy.”
Yahoo! JAPAN, the tenth largest Internet company in the world (and a completely separate one from Yahoo North America), reaches 84 percent of the Internet-using population in Japan: “Everybody interacts with Yahoo! JAPAN when they interact with the Internet in Japan,” Sands said.
The fact that BrightTag, which is less than four years old, has secured a partner that will use its technology to launch a real-time data management platform at a global level, promises to be a game-changer not just for thousands of consumers and brands in Japan but for BrightTag itself.
The foreign investment will allow BrightTag to add at least 100 high-paying tech jobs to downtown Chicago over the next two years - a move that will more than double its current number of employees and propel Chicago’s overall tech economy “to grow and evolve in unprecedented ways,” Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel said in a press release.
"To solve a complex technology problem, the tenth largest internet company in the world, found its solution right here in Chicago,” J.B. Pritzker, managing partner of BrightTag backer Pritzker Group Venture Capital said in a press release. “Yahoo! JAPAN's decision to power the core of its global data management platform with BrightTag is more evidence that Chicago is where the world discovers the best new technology companies.”
Since BrightTag was founded by Eric Lunt, Mike Sands and Marc Kiven in 2010, the company has been supported by top local investors such as Pritzker group Venture Capital, Baird Ventures and the I2A Fund to develop its revolutionary marketing technology, which allows brands such as Macy’s and Allstate to utilize customer data across all channels in real-time.
As BrightTag continues to innovate, the development of its technology will only be fueled by the Yahoo! JAPAN partnership; BrightTag will use this partnership to launch its next generation of big data products to help marketers collect and connect data across devices in real-time.
“Yahoo! JAPAN selected BrightTag’s Fuse, invested in the company and expanded our partnership because of its seasoned management team, impressive track record and patented leading-edge technology,” ToruTakata, Yahoo! JAPAN’s Vice President, Head of Display Ads, said in a press release. “BrightTag truly enables marketers to deliver the right offer to the right people at the right time via the right channel, so consumer brands and their agencies can finally keep up with customers in a multi-device, real-time world.”
