SOCi, a San Diego, CA-based marketing platform for multi-location brands, announced that it raised a total of $120 million in funding to invest in a revolutionary line of A.I. marketing products and to expand into new markets.
The round was led by JMI Equity ("JMI"), with participation from Vertical Venture Partners (VVP), Blossom Street Ventures, and strategic investor Renew Group Private Limited, owner of 5-hour Energy International and other innovative products.
In addition to its investment in A.I. technology, SOCi will use the funding to expand into new markets, including manufactured goods.
"SOCi's customers have thousands of marketing decisions to make across hundreds or thousands of locations. The opportunity for optimization is incredible, but at such a scale it's stunted by true human capacity issues," said Afif Khoury, CEO and co-founder of SOCi. "Our 'Genius' products are the answer, as they will leverage sophisticated data science models to drive recommendations and automate data-driven decisions across the organization."
Led by a group of neuro and data scientists, SOCi aims to leverage the new investment to change the relationship its customers have with marketing software.
Through a new line of "Genius" products, SOCi will leverage advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning models to transform its software from an award-winning platform that enterprise brands leverage to market to their customers, to a marketing partner that makes highly intelligent and impactful marketing decisions while also automating time-consuming marketing tasks at scale.
SOCi recently launched the first "Genius" product with a first-of-its-kind OpenAI integration into the company's review response management tool, which uses ChatGPT's natural language model to enable instant, intelligent responses to online reviews.
Company: SOCi Inc.
Raised: $120.0M
Round: Unknown
Funding Month: March 2023
Lead Investors: JMI Equity
Additional Investors: Vertical Venture Partners, Blossom Street Ventures, and Renew Group Private Limited
Company Website: https://www.meetsoci.com/
Software Category: Marketing Software
About the Company: SOCi is the marketing platform for multi-location brands. Through the use of advanced AI and machine learning, the SOCi platform provides users with actionable insights and recommendations while automating time-consuming marketing tasks for hundreds or thousands of business locations. Its AI-powered platform drives improved customer engagement and market-leading results at scale. SOCi's platform is trusted by more than 700 multi-location and enterprise businesses totaling over three million locations. The company empowers businesses like Ace Hardware, Jersey Mike's, Kumon, and Ford to scale localized marketing efforts across all digital channels in a way that is brand-directed, locally perfected, and data-connected. SOCi has recently received several recognitions, including the Deloitte Technology Fast 500, Inc. 5000, Inc., Entrepreneur's Top Franchise Suppliers ranking, G2's Best Software Awards for Marketing and Digital Advertising Products, Forbes' America's Best Startup Employers list, and The Financial Times' List of America's Fastest Growing Companies.
Source: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/soci-raises-120m-accelerates-vision-of-redefining-marketing-software-301763677.html