2022 the year of the Unicorns?

22
Take a look at the female-led SaaS unicorns 2022 globally and learn more about this topic hand by hand with Insider.

Insider, a leader in cross-channel customer personalization experiences, has recently announced a $121 million Series D funding round valued at $1.22 billion. Other investors that joined funding included the likes of Sequoia, Riverwood Capital, 212, Wamda Capital, Esas Private Equity, Endeavor Catalyst and ScaleXP.

Early predictions indicate that Insider will invest £40 million over the next three years. The additional capital will fuel their rapid expansion, enhance their core technology and help local sales and marketing investments to scale. Insider has aggressive plans, anticipating more than 100 new employees over the next three years, emphasizing hiring female engineers, filling R&D and product development positions.

Insider has received incredible growth entering the market three years ago. The company has just relocated to new pastures on 77 New Cavendish Street, which they believe will accommodate their growing sales, marketing, and customer success teams to manage relationships and support an increasing number of U.K. clients. This now sees insider with an attractive client roster with the likes of VirginSamsungEstée Lauder, IKEA, and Santander to name a few.

“With a meaningful strategic vision and a robust product roadmap, Insider is seeing an increasing number of the world’s leading brands and retailers looking to come on board. We are seeing huge interest from marketing and ecommerce teams looking to consolidate and simplify their tech stack while embracing emerging messaging and mobile channels, like WhatsApp, into their customer experience,” said Matt Markham, UK Country Manager. “It is an incredibly exciting time to come join – both as a client and as a member of the team.”

On average, brands across multiple industries have seen customers engage across six or more channels. Marketers are required to engage customers on their preferred media when they are most active. Insider’s AI-powered platform emmersifies their customers in a fully personalized experience through emerging messaging media like WhatsAppFacebook MessengerRCS, and SMS. Insider then coordinates all offline and online media data into a unified platform that allows enterprise marketers to:

  • connect customer data across channels and systems to reveal interests and preferred touchpoints
  • predict future behavior with an AI-powered intent engine, such as which customer segments are likely to convert, buy, and churn
  • Orchestrate and deliver personalized, optimized experiences to customers.

Insider’s channel integrations make it attractive to both large and small teams as they claim it takes minutes, not months, reducing dependency on internal I.T. teams to implement and maintain. The platform enables marketing teams to drive growth across channels and throughout the funnel from acquisition to activation, revenue, and retention (AARR), impacting ROI metrics such as conversion rate, CAC, LTV, and average order value.

Hande Cilingir, CEO of woman-led B2B SaaS Unicorn, Insider

With this funding milestone, the company became a few female-led SaaS unicorns globally. The business has since achieved consistent, rapid growth and, according to Crunchbase, is one of the top 9 B2B SaaS unicorns globally: the fifth largest B2B SaaS unicorn in the U.S., fourth in Europe, second in Asia, and first in Latin America. 

“We’ve been blitzscaling remarkably in the past three years and achieved 3X growth. In the same period, our global team grew by 300%, and our customer base continues to grow,” said founder and CEO Hande Cilingir. “Following our aggressive expansion in Asia, Europe and LATAM, we’ll carry this momentum in the U.S. market. We are a trusted software partner to leading global brands like Samsung, GAP, MAC, and Santander. We are laser-focused on bringing Insider to additional markets, and becoming the number choice for every marketer on this planet.”

Mr. Mansoor bin Ebrahim Al-Mahmoud, CEO of QIA, said: “QIA is constantly looking for innovators, both in the MENA region and globally, in line with our increasing focus on the tech space. Insider clearly stands out in the marketing technology ecosystem, and its highly personalized results can provide value to both audiences and businesses.”

Pieter Kemps, Principal Sequoia Capital, said: “What we see in Sequoia is that companies that delight their customers are the ones that win. And, Insider is doing just that: using next-level personalization to help brands delight their customers. Without a doubt, this is the future of CX.”

Founded in 2012 by Cilingir (Chief Executive Officer), Serhat Soyuerel (Chief Revenue Officer), Arda Koterin (Chief Customer Officer), Sinan Toktay (Chief Technology Officer), Okan Yedibela (V.P. of Engineering), and Muharrem Derinkök (Chief Product Officer), Insider now has more than 700 team members representing 41 different nationalities across 28 countries worldwide. Insider is a woman-led organization with 60% of top executives in the company, including the CEO, CMO, CFO, and CHRO.

Hande Cilingir was named one of the top women CEOs outside of the U.S. by Crunchbase. The leading MarTech platform, trusted by one-third of the Fortune Global 500 and half of Dow Jones Global Titans 50, is named Leader in The Forrester Wave for Cross-Channel Campaign Management 2021 and Gartner Magic Quadrant for Personalisation Engines 2021. The company has been named #1 Leader on G2’s Mobile Marketing Software and Personalisation Grids with a 4.6/5 rating for 20 consecutive quarters.

Joe De Pinho, Principal at Riverwood Capital, said: “The bar for competition has been raised across the board in SaaS over the past 5 years. Insider stands out as an outlier. Hande is a truly exceptional leader and, backed by her brilliant co-founders and teams, is building a world-class software company with capabilities beyond those of many in Silicon Valley. Theirs is a different mindset: one that breaks past boundaries and makes what seems impossible to many, a possibility.”

Insider is hiring across 28 regions. Explore open positions at useinsider.com/careers.

References:

Following a $121M Series D and $1.22B valuations, B2B SaaS …. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/following-121m-series-d-1-133500539.html

Insider unlocks unicorn status and announces $121M Series D. https://useinsider.com/news/insider-unlocks-unicorn-status-and-announces-121m-series-d/

Following a $121M Series D and $1.22B valuations, B2B SaaS …. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/following-121m-series-d-1-133500539.html

Following a $121M Series D and $1.22B valuations, B2B SaaS …. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/following-121m-series-d-1-133500539.html

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Luke Conrad

Technology & Marketing Enthusiast

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