MarTech Advisor's Investscape Q1 2018: Breaking Down the Funding Landscape in Martech, One Quarter at a Time
Apr 10 2018 | 04:58 PM | 5 Mins Read | Level - Intermediate | Read Mode
Khushbu Verma Former Manager, Research Services, MarTech Advisor
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Khushbu Verma is the Senior Manager for Research Services at MarTech Advisor, where she creates user-focused reports that help buyers navigate crowded markets. Khushbu Verma is the research contributor and administrator of the 2016-17 MTA Buyer’s Guides on major marketing technology categories, which you can download here. Over the period of 8 years of her professional experience, she has invariably acquired and implemented the Primary and Secondary Research & Analysis skills. Her proficiencies also cover Account Profiling, Market Insights, Vertical Specific Reports, Business Scope Analysis and Competitor Analysis. Prior to joining MarTech Advisor, Khushbu Verma worked on promotional marketing, CATI & CAWI surveys, training, customer retention and support. She has done her Masters in International Marketing and Research from The Indian Institute of Planning and Management (Pune).
A total of 100 martech companies received $3637Million ($3.6 Billion) in total funding this quarter (wow!)
Here’s the big trend from Q1 2018: The rise of ICO-funding
There’s a new type of funding rocking martech town: Initial Coin Offering. ICO, an increasingly popular fundraising option, is an unregulated means by which funds are raised in crypto currency and can be used as a source of capital for startups or for the development of new applicatons. Due to the rising value of crypto currency, it was only natural for this new type of funding to be introduced in the quarter gone by.
- A few martech companies who received ICO funding were: Mobius (USA), Telegram Messenger (UK), Endor (Israel), AdHive (Estonia) and Patron (Japan). That brings up the total VC funding in ICO for the quarter to $1.8BN.
- Telegram Messenger (investors are undisclosed) got the highest amount of funding (overall), i.e. $1.7Bn – this was in ICO funding. It is also the only company to have been funded twice in the same quarter - first with $850Mn in February and then in March for $850Mn again.
Other unmissable highlights:
2018 has been exciting so far with martech experts generously sharing predictions for the year on the rising capabilities of AI, the eventual shift to Voice Search, the continuous pull of email marketing, the rising influence of improved customer experiences…
But now, seeing that certain martech categories have attracted more funding than others, will we see some tweaks to what they predict for the rest of 2018?
Top funded martech categories for Q1 2018:
For the United States, Interactive Marketing ($1.99Bn, 13 companies) is the top funded category. This category comprises companies that create platforms or offer services that enable real-time and interactive exchanges between brands and their customers. Telegram Messenger is part of this subset (because bots are the core monetization strategy for them).
- The other 3 highly funded categories are: Content Marketing ($370Mn, 11 companies), Marketing Automation ($141Mn, 3 companies) and Marketing Analytics ($137Mn, 6 companies).
- In countries outside the United States: Interactive Marketing ($1.83Bn, 4 companies) is the top funded category, followed by Social Media Marketing ($101.5Mn, 2 companies)
While a total of 100 martech companies got funded in Q1, 65 of these were from USA and 35 from ROW (rest of the world) countries, contributing 65% and 35% respectively, to the total funding value. But what is interesting is that the value received by ROW-based companies ($2.36Bn) was greater than the total funding received by USA-based companies ($1.27Bn).
Have you wondered what some of the key considerations were for VC’s when identifying potential investees? Matt Garratt, SVP, Managing Partner, Salesforce Ventures says, “At Salesforce Ventures, our goal is to build the largest ecosystem of enterprise cloud companies and deliver the next generation of technology to our customers. We first consider the strategic benefits to our customers from our investments. Beyond that, we invest in companies with talented management teams, innovative products, large market opportunities and strong company visions. We also have to be able to visualize the company as part of our growing ecosystem of cloud computing technologies.”
YOY growth of VC funding for USA-based companies:
- Q1 2018 saw an elevation of 128% in overall funding of martech companies compared to Q1 2017 which was $1.59Bn
- Major investors calculated by the number of times they funded martech companies in Q1 2018 were Sequoia Capital, Insight Venture Partners and Lighter Capital. In addition, they are the most recurrent investors for Q1
For ROW countries:
- Top funded countries are United Kingdom ($1.71Bn), Canada ($204.07Mn) and South Korea ($130mn)
- Countries which got more than $50mn funding are India($73.75Mn) and France ($55.78Mn
When it comes to forecasting growth of Martech companies outside the US, Matt sums up, “We at Salesforce Ventures are committed to fueling cloud innovation and customer success outside of the U.S — we're active investors in EMEA, Japan, APAC. We are seeing tremendous growth in our own marketing technologies in these regions, and we are also seeing tremendous growth in our portfolio companies.”
Eager to unlock some more cool funding facts?
Download the full PDF report with one-click here.
Also, get the full picture and context with last year’s Bumper Issue – The Annual InvestScape 2017- one click download here.
