CrowdTwist

History

Beginnings

CrowdTwist was founded in August 2009 by Irving Fain, Josh Bowen and Mike Montero. Fain and Bowen previously worked together at Clear Channel Digital, where Bowen was in charge of analytics and Fain oversaw the company's digital marketing and social platforms. They also supervised Clear Channel's marketing loyalty program. While at Clear Channel, the two decided to create a brand loyalty program that would encompass both online and offline activities. Bowen, in his previous work at MTV, had realized that few music artists truly knew their fans and believed a loyalty platform could solve that.

The platform was originally conceived as a way for musicians to better connect with their fans. While planning the business, Fain and Bowen met Mike Montero. Montero had previously founded and sold two startup companies, Fotolog.net and Community Connect Inc. He joined the company as chief technology officer. CrowdTwist launched in 2010.

Techstars

In late 2011, CrowdTwist was accepted into the inaugural class of the Techstars NYC program. Techstars is a startup accelerator that awards selected startups up to $18,000 in seed funding, three months of mentorship from successful entrepreneurs and investors, and the opportunity to pitch to angel investors and venture capitalists at the end of the program. CrowdTwist developed and expanded its program offerings through its participation in Techstars. The company was also featured on Bloomberg Television's TechStars reality show in 2011.

Platform

CrowdTwist was a white label omni-channel customer loyalty and data analytics platform. The platform provided brands with visibility into their customers' activities across digital, social, mobile and transactional channels. When customers joined a loyalty program, their interactions with the brand across their social engagement, purchases and email activities were logged in their loyalty profile. Customers then accrued points for actions that benefited a brand, such as when they purchased a product, liked a Facebook profile, or subscribed to email notifications. Those points could be redeemed for rewards designed to increase a customer's brand loyalty. Examples of rewards include VIP concert tickets, brand merchandise and store coupons.

With CrowdTwist, companies could analyze captured data to help clients understand their customers and personalize marketing efforts. The platform tracked customer attributes such as age, gender, location, social influence, recent online activity and online purchasing history. The information collected by CrowdTwist could help companies build consumer profiles and tailor their marketing and customer engagement programs.

Funding

CrowdTwist raised $6 million in Series A funding in September 2011 led by SoftBank Capital and Fairhaven Capital with participation from KBS+P Ventures, Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments and several individual investors. In June 2014 CrowdTwist raised $9 million in Series B funding led by StarVest Partners. All existing investors, including SoftBank Capital and Fairhaven Capital contributed to the Series B funding round. The company has raised a total of $20 million to date.

Clients & partners

CrowdTwist has a variety of clients ranging from Fortune 100 and 500 companies in industries such as retail, consumer packaged goods, financial services, entertainment and travel. Former clients included TOMS, Ubisoft, Bealls, VIZIO, Gatorade, Steve Madden, Blu eCigs, 24 Hour Fitness, Sony Music, Zumiez, Pepsi, The X Factor, Marvel Entertainment, and L'Oréal.

Acquisition by Oracle

On 2 October 2019, Oracle announced that it has signed an agreement to acquire CrowdTwist. The platform became part of Oracle Advertising and Customer Experience.

References

References

1. (2 October 2019). "Oracle Buys CrowdTwist Extends Oracle CX with Leading Cloud-Native Omni-Channel Loyalty Solution".
2. (14 November 2013). "Loyalty provider CrowdTwist announces partnerships with VivaKi, Acxiom and IBM". Retail Customer Experience.
3. Eric Fisher. (13 August 2012). "Dolphins launch 'Fin' loyalty club". Sports Business Journal.
4. (19 September 2011). "CrowdTwist raises 6m for gamifying loyalty programs". VentureBeat.
5. Anthony Ha. (26 June 2014). "Loyalty And Marketing Analytics Startup CrowdTwist Raises $9M More". [[TechCrunch]].
6. (1 May 2012). "CrowdTwist ties social to spend, quantifying social actions". StartupsFM.
7. (17 April 2011). "A Social Twist to Loyalty Marketing". SeedWalker.
8. (6 December 2010). "Entrepreneur, Coder, Investor, an Interview with Mike Montero". yearonelabs.
9. (15 July 2012). "Multi Channel Loyalty Platforms". TrendHunter.
10. (8 April 2011). "TechStars nurtures start ups with mentors". New York Times.
11. (2 August 2011). "TechStars Partners with BloombergTV for Startup Reality TV". BostInno.
12. (17 April 2011). "Loyalty Startup CrowdTwist grows 3200% with new Blue Chip clients like Sony and Pepsi". VentureBeat.
13. John Koetsier. (4 February 2013). "Bob on Twitter, Bo on Facebook, and BJ on Pinterest are all one guy. CrowdTwist helps you sell to him". [[VentureBeat]].
14. (24 July 2012). "CrowdTwist: rewarding customer loyalty". VentureBeat.
15. Richard Byrne Reilly. (27 June 2014). "CrowdTwist hauls in $9M for SaaS data intelligence". [[VentureBeat]].
16. Amy Dusto. (1 April 2014). "USA Track & Field starts an online rewards program". Internet Retailer.
17. (19 September 2011). "CrowdTwist closes $6million Series A Funding". Vator TV.
18. Felix, Rachel. (2016-09-07). "Loyalty and the global brand: A Marvel Comics case study".
19. (12 July 2012). "CrowdTwist helping companies pull together, reward various customer engagement activities". Loyalty 360.
20. (19 September 2011). "Social Loyalty and Rewards Platform CrowdTwist raises 6million from Softbank and others". TechCrunch.
21. (2019-10-02). "Oracle Buys CrowdTwist". Oracle Corporation.