Terragon’s $9 million investment validates the market maturity in Africa’s cloud and martech sector
Terragon, a company that turns telecom channels into mobile advertising inventory, closed a $9 million Series B financing. It aims to extend the focus on supplying mobile B2C messaging by deep consumer insights from “big data.” Orange Ventures led the investment, which included TLcom Capital, LoftyInc, Sango Capital, VestedWorld, and Western Technology Investment (WTI).
Expansion of Terragon Marketing Cloud:
Terragon is a well-known data and cloud martech company in Africa. It provides data about the continent’s booming consumer markets through many products. One of its primary products, Adrenaline, is a telco-data monetization solution that allows telcos to diversify their income and marketers to reach specialized populations. In 2018 the cloud analytics and marketing platform received $5 million in Series A investment. It was used to expand Adrenaline into the Terragon Marketing Cloud. Adrenaline now has over 150 million segmented profiles in Nigeria. Corporate clients of Terragon can drill down on various combinations of behavioral and demographic data. They can contact customers via a variety of online and physical channels. They can even link to numerous touch points like online sales and payment systems.
Investment Goals:
According to the company, the investment would allow Terragon to expand cloud-native capabilities on its platform. It will also permit the development and acceleration of localized ML and AI to provide the groundwork for enterprise communication. According to founder and CEO Elo Umeh, the firm intends to launch its Pan-African growth (which it is currently doing in Ghana and Kenya). According to Umeh, the increasing investment and interest from French telecom heavyweights validate Africa’s market maturity in martech.
“They are Africa’s pioneer specializing in cloud-native data software, which serves as the fundamental building blocks for enterprise AI across the continent. With protected intellectual property, an inventive business model, and a strong presence in multiple markets, they are well-positioned to establish a strong leadership across the continent.”Grégoire de Padirac, partner at Orange Venture said of the investment.
Privacy Improvement:
According to Google, third-party cookies will be phased out to improve user privacy. According to the advertising giant, third-party cookies breach users’ privacy by allowing websites to track them without permission. Eliminating third-party cookies will have several consequences for the online advertising industry. Advertisers will no longer be able to track users across multiple websites. Advertisers will find new ways to collect, analyze, and tailor customer data to provide personalized ads and experiences to customers. Instead of depending on third-party cookies, businesses will need to combine different identification methods. To accurately profile customers, a central Customer Data Platform (CDP) in combination with other online data sources appears to be the solution, like what Terragon has done for several years with various telcos in the African market.
