- Marketing technology start-up gains support of Project A Ventures, Capnamic Ventures and IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft among others
- Focus on product development and expansion of customer base
Berlin, January 14th 2016. Berlin marketing technology start-up CrossEngage has successfully completed a seed financing round by securing a seven-figure package from Project A Ventures, Capnamic Ventures, IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft and further well-known VCs and angel investors. The company’s growing team, headed by its two founders, plans above all to push product development as well as the acquisition of further customers with the new capital.
Manuel Hinz, founder and Managing Director of CrossEngage, commented: “We are delighted that we have already been able to win over such a large number of respected business angels and VCs with our business model at this early stage in our development. Together with our team, we would like to develop CrossEngage into one of the leading cross-channel marketing platforms.”
CrossEngage was founded in 2015 by Dr. Markus Wübben and Manuel Hinz. The start-up provides cloud-based software which enables companies to direct their marketing campaigns across all channels in such a way that their customers are always addressed with one consistent marketing voice. This ensures that customers receive co-ordinated appeals, for instance through E-mail, Facebook, WhatsApp or even postcards. CrossEngage takes care of the gathering and consolidation of user data and offers advice on which appeals to send to whom through which channels. At the same time, the delivery of the campaigns is however still left to the existing marketing tools of the respective individual channels, with which the platform is connected through programming interfaces, or APIs. This has the advantage of not requiring the replacement of the company’s existing marketing infrastructure, making integration of CrossEngage simple and fast.
“The constantly increasing costs of acquiring new customers have made the absolute optimisation of existing user relationships a necessity,” according to Dr. Florian Heinemann, founder and Managing Director of Project A Ventures: “The ability to orchestrate all marketing channels for each individual user at the appropriate point in time is a large and relevant step in this direction. CrossEngage offers companies the perfect software solution to realise this objective.”
In addition to Project A Ventures, which already supported CrossEngage in its initial phase both financially and operationally, the company was able to win over Capnamic Ventures as well as the VC fund Kreativwirtschaft Berlin, managed by IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft, as new primary investors, among others.
“The experienced team has gotten a technically demanding product up and running in a very short period of time and it’s already helping many companies to improve their marketing campaigns in a focussed way today,” observed Jörg Binnenbrücker, Managing Partner of Capnamic Ventures. “This approach impressed us from the beginning and we are very happy to be able to continue to support the team in their further efforts.”
Roger Bendisch, Managing Director of IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft: “With our support of CrossEngage, we are glad to be able to accompany a further Berlin-based company whose innovative solutions underline the great potential of the creative branch in this city.”
Furthermore, CrossEngage has also successfully gained the support of further experienced investors, with Heilemann Ventures, Ventech, TA Ventures and Voltage Ventures also coming on board. The current financing round is rounded off by the participation of a number of further well-known seed investors such as for instance the founders of eDarling (David Khalil & Lukas Brosseder), Ladenzeile (Robert Maier & Johannes Schaback), Home24 (Philipp Kreibohm), AKM3 (Andre Alpar, Markus Koczy & Maik Metzen), The Iconic (Finn Hänsel) and Flaconi (Björn Kolbmüller & Paul Schwarzenholz).
CrossEngage was supported in this initial financing round with legal advice from the team headed by Dr. Patrick Hohl of BMH Bräutigam.
About CrossEngage
CrossEngage was founded in 2015 by Dr. Markus Wübben and Manuel Hinz with the support of Project A Ventures. CrossEngage, based in Berlin-Mitte, is developing a cross-channel marketing platform that consolidates user data from various data sources and enables companies to make decisions on which user should receive which marketing campaign through which channel on the basis of those data. Replacement of a company’s existing marketing structure is not necessary with this solution, since CrossEngage integrates seamlessly with the existing tools for each channel.
About Project A Ventures
Project A Ventures is a Berlin-based early-stage investor and company builder in the digital technology space. With financial support and operational expertise, Project A helps startups to build up competences in key areas such as IT, Performance Marketing, Business Intelligence and Organization Building, and thus contributes to their sustainable success. Project A has supported entrepreneurs in building companies such as Treatwell, nu3, Eyeota, evino, WorldRemit or Tictail.
About Capnamic Ventures
Capnamic Ventures is an independent venture capital company with offices in Cologne and Berlin which invests in business models situated all along the digital value creation chain. These include growth markets such as Mobile Applications, Software-as-a-Service, Internet of Things, Fintech, Mobility and eHealth. The company primarily supports start-ups in their initial phases by providing risk capital. Capnamic Ventures’ team combines the expertise from more than 100 participations and 30 years of investment experience. The investors are primarily companies and entrepreneurial families. As such, in this regard Capnamic Ventures has successfully built a bridge between Old and New Economy.
About IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft
IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft provides venture capital to innovative Berlin-based companies and has established itself as the market leader in the field of early stage financing for the location of Berlin. The funds are primarily used for the development and market introduction of innovative products or services as well as business concepts for the creative branch. Since March 2015, two funds managed by IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft have been in the investment phase: the VC fund Technology Berlin II, with a volume of 60 million euros, and the VC fund Creative Branch Berlin II, with a volume of 40 million euros. Both VC funds are financed with resources from Investitionsbank Berlin (IBB) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), administered by the Federal State of Berlin. Since 1997, IBB Beteiligungsgesellschaft has made over 1.1 billion euros available to Berlin-based creative and technology companies in consortia with partners, with a total individual contribution of 157 million euros as lead, co-lead or co-investor.
Further investors
- Heilemann Ventures
- Ventech
- TA Ventures
- Voltage Ventures