Sep
14
2021
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Sendoso nabs $100M as its corporate gifting platform passes 20,000 customers

Corporate gift services have come into their own during the COVID-19 pandemic by standing in as a proxy for other kinds of relationship-building activities — office meetings, lunches and hosting at events — that have traditionally been part and parcel of how people do business, but were no longer feasible during lockdowns, social distancing and offices closing their doors.

Now, Sendoso — a popular “end-to-end” gifting platform offering access to 30,000 products, including corporate swag, regular physical gifts, gift cards and more; and then providing services like logistics, packing and sending to get those gifts to the recipients — is announcing $100 million of funding to capitalize on this shift, led by a big new investor.

New backer SoftBank, via its Vision Fund 2, is leading this latest Series C round of funding. Oak HC/FT, Struck Capital, Stage 2 Capital, Craft Ventures, Signia Venture Partners and Felicis Ventures — all previous investors — are also participating.

The company has been on a strong growth trajectory for years now, but it specifically saw a surge of activity as the pandemic kicked off. It now has more than 20,000 businesses signed up and using its services, particularly for sales and marketing outreach, but also to help shore up morale among employees.

“Everyone was stuck at home by themselves, saturated with emails,” said Kris Rudeegraap, the CEO of Sendoso, in an interview. “Having a personal connection to sales prospects, employees and others just meant more.” It has now racked up some 3 million gifts sent since launching in 2016.

Sendoso is not disclosing its valuation, but Rudeegraap hinted that it was four times higher than the startup’s Series B valuation from 2020. PitchBook estimates that to be $160 million, which would make the current valuation $640 million. The company has now raised more than $150 million.

Rudeegraap said Sendoso will be using the funds in part to invest in a couple of areas. First, to hire more talent: It has 500 employees now and plans to grow that by 30% by the end of this year. And second, international expansion: It is setting up a European HQ in Dublin, Ireland to complement its main office in San Francisco.

Comcast, Kimpton Hotels, Thomson Reuters, Nasdaq and eBay are among its current customers — so this is in part to serve those customers’ global user bases, as well as to sign up new gifters. He estimated that the bigger market for corporate gifting is about $100 billion annually, so there is a lot to play for here.

The company was co-founded by Rudeegraap and Braydan Young (who is its chief alliances officer) on the back of a specific need Rudeegraap identified while working as a sales executive. Gifting is a very standard practice in the world of sales and marketing, but he was finding a lot of traction with potential and current customers by taking a personalized approach to this act.

“I was manually packing boxes, grabbing swag, coming up with handwritten notes,” he recalled. “It was inefficient, but it worked so well. So I dreamed up an idea: why not be able to click a button in Salesforce to do this automatically? Sometimes the best company is one that solves a pain point of your own.”

And this is essentially what Sendoso does. The startup’s platform integrates with a company’s existing marketing, sales and management software — Salesforce, HubSpot, SalesLoft among them — and then lets users use this to organize and order gifts through these channels, for example as part of larger sales, marketing or HR strategies. The gifts are wide-ranging, covering corporate swag, other physical presents, gift cards and more, and there are also integrations you can include to share gifting across teams of salespeople, to analyze the campaigns and more.

The Sendoso platform itself, meanwhile, positions itself as having the “marketplace selection and logistics precision of Amazon.com.” But Sendoso also believes it’s better than someone simply using Amazon.com itself since it ultimately takes a more personalized approach in how it presents the gift.

“There are a lot of things we do uniquely in terms of what we have built throughout our software, gifting options and logistics centre. We really personalize our gifts at scale with handwritten notes, special boxing, and more,” something that Amazon cannot do, he added. “We have built a lot of unique technology and logistics software that would make it hard for Amazon to compete.” He said that one of Sendoso’s integrations is actually with Amazon, so Sendoso users can order through there, but then the gift is first routed to Sendoso to be repackaged in a nicer way before being sent out.

At its heart, the startup has built a way of knitting together disparate work practices — some codified in software, and some based on human interactions and significantly more infused with randomness, emotion and ad hoc approaches — and built it all into a technology platform. The ability to scale what feels like an otherwise bespoke level of service is what has helped Sendoso gain traction not just with users, but investors, too.

“We believe Sendoso offers the most comprehensive end-to-end gifting platform in the market,” said Priya Saiprasad, a partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers. “Their platform includes a global marketplace of curated vendors, seamless integration with existing tools, global logistics, and deep analytics. As a result, Sendoso serves as the backbone to enterprises’ engagement programs with prospective customers, existing customers, employees and other key stakeholders. We’re excited to lead this Series C round to help Sendoso accelerate its vision.”

Oct
03
2019
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Osano makes business risk and compliance (somewhat) sexy again

A new startup is clearing the way for other companies to better monitor and manage their risk and compliance with privacy laws.

Osano, an Austin, Texas-based startup, bills itself as a privacy platform startup, which uses a software-as-a-service solution to give businesses real-time visibility into their current privacy and compliance posture. On one hand, that helps startups and enterprises large and small insight into whether or not they’re complying with global or state privacy laws, and manage risk factors associated with their business such as when partner or vendor privacy policies change.

The company launched its privacy platform at Disrupt SF on the Startup Battlefield stage.

Risk and compliance is typically a fusty, boring and frankly unsexy topic. But with ever-changing legal landscapes and constantly moving requirements, it’s hard to keep up. Although Europe’s GDPR has been around for a year, it’s still causing headaches. And stateside, the California Consumer Privacy Act is about to kick in and it is terrifying large companies for fear they can’t comply with it.

Osano mixes tech with its legal chops to help companies, particularly smaller startups without their own legal support, to provide a one-stop shop for businesses to get insight, advice and guidance.

“We believe that any time a company does a better job with transparency and data protection, we think that’s a really good thing for the internet,” the company’s founder Arlo Gilbert told TechCrunch.

Gilbert, along with his co-founder and chief technology officer Scott Hertel, have built their company’s software-as-a-service solution with several components in mind, including maintaining its scorecard of 6,000 vendors and their privacy practices to objectively grade how a company fares, as well as monitoring vendor privacy policies to spot changes as soon as they are made.

One of its standout features is allowing its corporate customers to comply with dozens of privacy laws across the world with a single line of code.

You’ve seen them before: The “consent” popups that ask (or demand) you to allow cookies or you can’t come in. Osano’s consent management lets companies install a dynamic consent management in just five minutes, which delivers the right consent message to the right people in the best language. Using the blockchain, the company says it can record and provide searchable and cryptographically verifiable proof-of-consent in the event of a person’s data access request.


“There are 40 countries with cookie and data privacy laws that require consent,” said Gilbert. “Each of them has nuances about what they consider to be consent: what you have to tell them; what you have to offer them; when you have to do it.”

Osano also has an office in Dublin, Ireland, allowing its corporate customers to say it has a physical representative in the European Union — a requirement for companies that have to comply with GDPR.

And, for corporate customers with questions, they can dial-an-expert from Osano’s outsourced and freelance team of attorneys and privacy experts to help break down complex questions into bitesize answers.

Or as Gilbert calls it, “Uber, but for lawyers.”

The concept seems novel but it’s not restricted to GDPR or California’s upcoming law. The company says it monitors international, federal and state legislatures for new laws and changes to existing privacy legislation to alert customers of upcoming changes and requirements that might affect their business.

In other words, plug in a new law or two and Osano’s customers are as good as covered.

Osano is still in its pre-seed stage. But while the company is focusing on its product, it’s not thinking too much about money.

“We’re planning to kind of go the binary outcome — go big or go home,” said Gilbert, with his eye on the small- to medium-sized enterprise. “It’s greenfield right now. There’s really nobody doing what we’re doing.”

The plan is to take on enough funding to own the market, and then focus on turning a profit. So much so, Gilbert said, that the company is registered as a B Corporation, a more socially conscious and less profit-driven approach of corporate structure, allowing it to generate profits while maintaining its social vision.

The company’s idea is strong; its corporate structure seems mindful. But is it enough of an enticement for fellow startups and small businesses? It’s either dominate the market or bust, and only time will tell.

Jul
17
2017
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Percona Live Europe 2017 Call for Papers Deadline Extended to July 24, 2017

Percona Live Call for Papers

Percona Live Call for PapersWe are extending the Percona Live Open Source Database Conference Europe 2017 call for papers deadline to Monday, July 24, 2017. Get your submissions in now!

Between our Conference Committee working hard to review all the outstanding talk ideas, and the many community requests for more time, we didn’t want to shortchange any of our applicants. If you procrastinated too long, didn’t complete your talk submission or just plain forgot to submit, this is your reprieve! You have one extra week to pull together a proposal for a talk on open source databases at Percona Live Europe 2017.

The theme of Percona Live Europe 2017 is “Championing Open Source Databases.” There are sessions on MySQL, MariaDBMongoDB and Other Open Source Database technologies, including time series databases, PostgreSQL and RocksDB. Are you:

  • Working with MongoDB as a developer?
  • Creating a new MySQL-variant time series database?
  • Deploying MariaDB in a novel way?
  • Using open source database technology to solve a business issue?

Share your open source database experiences with peers and professionals in the open source community! We invite you to submit your speaking proposal for breakout, tutorial or lightning talk sessions:

  • Breakout Session. Broadly cover a technology area using specific examples. Sessions should be either 25 minutes or 50 minutes in length (including Q&A).
  • Tutorial Session. Present a technical session that aims for a level between a training class and a conference breakout session. Encourage attendees to bring and use laptops for working on detailed and hands-on presentations. Tutorials will be three or six hours in length (including Q&A).
  • Lightning Talk. Give a five-minute presentation focusing on one key point that interests the open source community: technical, lighthearted or entertaining talks on new ideas, a successful project, a cautionary story, a quick tip or demonstration.

Submit your talk ideas now.

PLEASE NOTE: We have a new call for papers system that requires everyone to register for a new account. You can save proposals as drafts and edit them later. Once a proposal is submitted, it is final. You can NOT change a proposal once submitted.

Register for Percona Live Europe 2017 now! Early Bird registration lasts until August 8

Last year’s Percona Live Europe sold out, and we’re looking to do the same at this year’s conference. Don’t miss your chance to get your ticket at its most affordable price. Click here to register.

Percona Live 2017 sponsorship opportunities are available now

Percona Live Europe 2017 is just around the corner. Have you secured your sponsorship yet? Last year’s event sold out! Booth selection for our limited sponsorship opportunities is on a first-come, first-served basis. Click here to find out how to sponsor.

Don’t miss out on a special room rate at the Percona Live Europe 2017 venue

This year, Percona Live Europe is being held at the Radisson Blu Royal Hotel, Dublin. You can get a special room rate when you attend the conference. But hurry, rooms are going fast! To get the special room rate:

  1. Visit https://www.radissonblu.com/en/royalhotel-dublin.
  2. Click BOOK NOW at the top right.
  3. Enter your preferred check-in and check-out dates, and how many rooms.
  4. From the drop-down “Select Rate Type,” choose Promotional Code.
  5. Enter the code PERCON to get the discount.

This special deal includes breakfast each morning! The group rate only applies if used within the Percona Live Europe group block dates (September 25-27, 2017). The deadline for booking with this rate is July 24, 2017.

Jun
05
2017
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Percona Live Open Source Database Conference Europe 2017 in Dublin, Ireland Call for Papers is Open!

Percona Live Call for Papers

Percona Live Call for PapersAnnouncing the opening of the Percona Live Open Source Database Conference Europe 2017 in Dublin, Ireland call for papers. It will be open from now until July 17, 2017.*

Do you have a big idea to explain, use case to share or skill to teach? Submit your speaking proposal for either breakout or tutorial sessions. This is your chance to put your developer ideas, business and case studies, and operational expertise in front of an intelligent, engaged audience of open source technology users.

The theme of Percona Live Europe 2017 is “Time Series Databases” for MySQL, MariaDB, MongoDB and other open source databases, with the main tracks of:

  • Developers
  • Business / Case Studies
  • Operations

We are looking for topics that address a variety of open source issues: Are you:

  • Working with MongoDB as a developer?
  • Creating a new MySQL-variant time series database?
  • Deploying MariaDB in a novel way?
  • Using open source database technology to solve a particular business issue?

We invite you to submit your speaking proposal for breakout, tutorial or lightning talk sessions. Share your open source database experiences with peers and professionals in the open source community by presenting a:

  • Breakout Session. Broadly cover a technology area using specific examples. Sessions should be either 25 minutes or 50 minutes in length (including Q&A).
  • Tutorial Session. Present a technical session that aims for a level between a training class and a conference breakout session. Encourage attendees to bring and use laptops for working on detailed and hands-on presentations. Tutorials will be three or six hours in length (including Q&A).
  • Lightning Talk. Give a five-minute presentation focusing on one key point that interests the open source community: technical, lighthearted or entertaining talks on new ideas, a successful project, a cautionary story, a quick tip or demonstration.

Speaking at Percona Live Europe is a great way to build your personal and company brands. If selected, you will receive a complimentary full conference pass!

Submit your talks now.

*NOTE: We have changed our registration platform this year, so you will need to register before submitting a talk idea (even if you have previously registered).

Tips for Submitting

Include presentation details, but be concise. Clearly state:

  • Purpose of the talk (problem, solution, action format, etc.)
  • Covered technologies
  • Target audience
  • Audience takeaway

Keep proposals free of sales pitches. The Committee is looking for in-depth technical talks, not ones that sound like a commercial.

Be original! Make your presentation stand out by submitting a proposal that focuses on real-world scenarios, relevant examples, and knowledge transfer.

Submit your proposals as soon as you can – the call for papers closes July 17, 2017!

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