Latest CDP and MarTech Insights, July 2021 - Gulf and South West Asia

In partnership with the CDP Institute

Is a Customer Data Platform critical to your MarTech stack? A lot depends on how an organisation currently manages customer data. With a fast changing privacy landscape, the necessity of providing a unified customer experience and the pressure to continually increase revenue, customer data management is increasingly instrumental to leveraging data for growth. I have partnered with the CDP Institute for their Emerging Markets Newsletter. Stay tuned for weekly updates on the CDP and MarTech space in the Middle East and South West Asia!

Issue 3: July 15, 2021

Swirl Launches Live Video Shopping for D2C & Retail brands in India

India’s leading Live Commerce Mobile SaaS provider, SWIRL, is introducing enhanced Live & Interactive Video Shopping Experiences to the Indian market. It uses technology that is scalable, and adds a proprietary Interactive layer on top of video, using Text, Chat, WhatsApp, SMS, & Voice to make the entire experience close to real-life shopping. Read More.

CRMNEXT Raises $16M in New Funding to Accelerate Global Expansion and Invest in Doubling its Team
CRMNEXT, the digital and customer experience platform for enterprise banks & financial service providers globally, announced $16M in Series B funding co-led by Avataar Ventures and Ascent Capital. Headquartered in India, CRMNEXT is currently servicing almost 100 large global enterprises in the banking and insurance space. Their customer base includes HDFC, SBI, Arab Bank, and Metlife. Read More.

Second Cohort of ‘Google for Startups Accelerator: MENA’ Welcomes 12 Startups

Google announced the list of startups for the second cohort of ‘Google for Startups Accelerator Middle East and North Africa’, a three-month digital accelerator programme for Seed to Series A technology startups based in the region. The twelve technology startups come from six Arab countries across automotive, agriculture, fitness, fintech, real-estate, e-commerce and entertainment. Read More.

Bevy Acquires Egypt-based Eventtus, Adding Key Innovations for Virtual, Hybrid, and In-person Enterprise Events

Bevy, the only enterprise community event engine, today announced the acquisition of Eventtus. The acquisition adds more than 20 engineers to the Bevy team, including Egyptian founders Mai Medhat and Nihal Fares. It also extends Bevy’s event technology stack with the addition of a mobile in-person conference app, and several other engagement tools for attendees. Read More.

Issue 2: July 8, 2021

89% of GCC Consumers Will Opt for Digital Banking Services Over Visiting a Physical Branch Post Covid-19

A new survey conducted by Backbase with YouGov discovered that consumer appetite for digital banking services continues to grow in the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), accelerated further by the COVID-19 pandemic. 77% of respondents say that they use digital banking services at least once a week, and 30% uses services once a day or more. Read More.

SALESmanago LLC & Aghreni Technologies, India Announce Partnership to Offer Customer Data and Experience Platform

SALESmanago, a leading Customer Data and Experience Platform (CDXP) provider in Europe & USA and Aghreni Technologies Pvt Ltd, headquartered in India (Owner of the popular brand ‘Kenscio’) announced a partnership to promote SALESmanago’ s bestselling AI-drivenCustomer 360° Platform for Global  customers and in particular to Indian enterprises. Read More.

Exotel and Ameyo Announce Merger to Form the Largest Customer Engagement Cloud Platform

Exotel, Asia’s largest cloud communication platform (headquartered in India), and Ameyo, Asia’s largest contact center platform, announced a merger. The merger creates the largest customer engagement cloud platform in the emerging markets, with a presence in 60 countries and an ARR of 40 million USD. Over 500 of the largest enterprises in India use either Ameyo or Exotel. Read More.

Comscore Launches Plan Metrix Multi-Platform in India

Plan Metrix reports more than 300 different attributes in India across a range of lifestyles, interests, and activities, including automotive, beauty, electronics/computers, financial, food & beverage, health, home & living, retail & apparel, sports & leisure, travel and more. Marketers can generate stronger multi-platform media plans, identify advanced audience segments, and reach consumers across different platforms to achieve better ROI. Read More.

Issue 1: July 1, 2021

Splitit Partners with Leading Middle East BNPL Provider tabby 

Splitit, the company empowering consumers to use their existing credit to spread payments over time, announced a partnership with tabby, the leading Middle East Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) provider. tabby is the leading BNPL provider serving the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, supporting more than 2,000 merchants, including Ikea, SHEIN, Marks and Spencer, adidas, and Toys R Us. tabby will integrate Splitit's installment payment platform through a white-label solution to allow tabby's merchants to offer installments on credit cards. Read More.

Marketing Tech Company, Sojern, to Drive Abu Dhabi Hotel Bookings

Digital marketing solutions company, Sojern, has extended its partnership with the Department of Culture and Tourism – Abu Dhabi (DCT Abu Dhabi). Sojern is a leading digital marketing platform built for travel marketers. Powered by AI and traveler intent data, Sojern activates multi-channel marketing solutions to drive direct demand. Sojern will work with more destination marketing organisations to drive traveller demand to the emirate. Sojern provides a range of digital display and social media advertising campaigns. So far, these digital strategies have reached 3 million people and increased Abu Dhabi hotel bookings. Read More.

India’s First Independent DSP, MediaMath, and Airtel Announce Ad Tech Partnership

MediaMath, the global independent advertising technology company for brands and agencies, announced a collaboration for ad tech with Airtel, India’s premier communications solutions provider. Airtel recently launched Airtel Ads – a solution that allows brands to curate consent-based and privacy-safe campaigns to one of the biggest pools of quality customers in India. Airtel has over 200 monthly active users (MAUs) across its digital platforms. In addition to providing access to deep consumer insights, Airtel will facilitate access to advertising inventory, working in tandem with MediaMath to ensure end-customer relevance. Read More.

Want these updates direct to your inbox? Subscribe to the CDP Institute’s Newsletter here.