Thoma Bravo and ForgeRock today announced the completion of Thoma Bravo's acquisition of ForgeRock in an all-cash transaction valued at approximately $2.3 billion. The acquisition agreement was previously announced on October 11, 2022, and approved by ForgeRock stockholders at ForgeRock's Special Meeting of Stockholders held on January 12, 2023.

Upon completion of the acquisition, ForgeRock stockholders are entitled to receive $23.25 in cash for each share of ForgeRock class A common stock and class B common stock they owned. ForgeRock's class A common stock will no longer trade and will be delisted from the New York Stock Exchange.

Thoma Bravo also announced that it has combined ForgeRock into its portfolio company Ping Identity. The combined company is positioned to better serve customers across the dynamic and fast-growing Identity and Access Management market by providing enhanced products and services, broader geographic support, and increased innovation. The combined company will seek to accelerate the delivery of identity security experiences for the customers, employees, and partners of companies worldwide.

J.P. Morgan acted as exclusive financial advisor to ForgeRock, and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, P.C., acted as legal counsel to ForgeRock. Kirkland & Ellis LLP and Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP acted as legal counsel to Thoma Bravo.  

The two companies are teaming up to drive greater programmatic guaranteed access to premium CTV for agencies and brands

Basis Technologies, a global provider of programmatic advertising and media automation solutions, today announced an integration with FreeWheel that will give advertisers direct access to premium connected television advertising inventory.

Per this integration, FreeWheel, a global technology platform for the television advertising industry, will enable Basis platform users to access programmatic guaranteed buying capabilities on premium video inventory spanning publishers across the ad ecosystem. 

One notable feature of this new integration – and its accompanying capabilities – is that it gives marketers the ability to access guaranteed, upfront like premium CTV ad inventory commitments, putting them on equal footing with competitors who may have larger ad spend budgets. 

By simplifying and further opening access to this type of ad inventory to make it more direct, Basis and FreeWheel are expanding CTV advertising’s supply, growth and potential to a larger group of marketers. 

“When people think of ‘programmatic guaranteed,’ the first association or use case that may come to mind is the upfronts, but nowadays, the potential and opportunity for this medium have expanded beyond that,” said Jon Mansell, U.S. Head of Marketplace Demand, FreeWheel. “We’re excited to team up with Basis to democratize, simplify and open up access to this inventory, as well as drive creative and innovative uses for it, among today’s buyers.”

“There is high demand among marketers trying to reach audiences on CTV today and as such, we’ve teamed up with FreeWheel to remove some of the barriers to growth and to further democratize this channel,” said Tyler Kelly, President, Basis Technologies. “FreeWheel is the right partner for this given their track record and commitment behind simplifying and creating more direct supply paths to different pools of ad inventory.” 

The Basis platform is composed of integrated applications that automate manual operations, standardize business processes, and improve marketing and advertising performance. Basis capabilities include ad buying via programmatic, vendor-direct, search and social. Its BasisTV+ solution powers addressable TV advertising with 80 trackable metrics and 1,000 targeting parameters. 

Recognized by analyst firm as a "content personalization and marketing powerhouse"

Optimizely, the leading digital experience platform (DXP) provider, today announced it has been named a Leader in The Forrester Wave™^: Content Management Systems, Q3 2023. This news follows Optimizely's recent introduction of Content Graph capabilities to its composable Content Management System (CMS) that can be leveraged in a headless, traditional, or combined manner.

The Forrester report shared Optimizely "performs very well in personalization, A/B testing, and translation and localizations." Additionally, the report indicated Optimizely's CMS "excels at depth of content and audience analytics off the shelf (no additional licensing) and a strong ability to scale content delivery through its partnership with Microsoft Azure and its cloud native architecture."

"Content sits at the core of every digital experience," said Rupali Jain, Optimizely's Chief Product Officer. "Our product changes the entire content lifecycle into one continuous process of planning, creating, orchestrating, delivering, and optimizing instead of isolated tasks across disparate systems. In an age where customer preferences and intent changes quickly, we empower brands to personalize to each audience, backed by data and science rather than simply opinion. We believe this recognition from Forrester confirms we're on the right track."

Optimizely powers more than 10,000 brands with a deep global partner network, uniquely offering its users the choice of leveraging its CMS in the way that works best for their organization. With the addition of Optimizely's Content Graph, customers can more easily repurpose content, provide highly customized search experiences, and create compelling content blocks – ultimately enabling more dynamic content experiences.

The addition of Google’s reCAPTCHA to consumer engagements improves quality and authenticity of customer feedback

First Insight, Inc., a global leader in Voice of the Customer (VoC) retail decision-making solutions, proudly unveils its integration of advanced CAPTCHA technology. This move underscores the company's commitment to ensuring the utmost quality and authenticity in consumer feedback. Google’s reCAPTCHA, renowned for its efficacy, is now a standard offering for First Insight’s clientele, fortifying the integrity of consumer interactions. reCAPTCHA is used to optimize the likelihood that the respondent is a human and not a computer. This functionality adds to other data integrity checks First Insight provides.

CAPTCHA functionality allows our clients to mitigate the threats posed by an increased use of AI, malicious bots, and identity theft,” said Greg Petro, Chief Executive Officer, First Insight. “Proactively protecting the integrity of the consumer feedback and the actionable results is always our top priority.”

Guarding against bots with CAPTCHA is one line of defense in improving results quality. However, other means are also necessary since digital survey data are subject to various sources of error, creating a well-known industry issue of “dirty data”. To cleanse the data and ensure higher quality results, First Insight also screens for repetitive comments per respondent, as well as comments exceeding a specified length. Its Risk Alert feature is unique to the industry and analyzes feedback on test items that may indicate the design or messaging is offensive, which can create a public relations nightmare if taken to market. The use of Bayesian Modeling helps screen respondents’ responses “in real time” to be used in the data set to create predictive, actionable and proven results.

First Insight empowers retailers and brands worldwide to make better decisions regarding, product, pricing, planning and marketing decisions, which in turn drive better financial outcomes. First Insight’s InsightSUITE delivers quantifiable results including, on average, a 10 – 12% increase in conversions; inventory reductions by 5 – 18%; sample cost reductions of 20 – 30%; and an ROI of 11 – 15%.

This latest announcement emphasizes the proactive and forward-thinking nature of First Insight's decision to integrate CAPTCHA, while also highlighting the company's ongoing commitment to quality and authenticity.

New functionality helps financial institutions turn their existing database into a deal flow engine

Total Expert, the customer engagement platform purpose-built for modern financial institutions, today announced new capabilities that enable users to drive growth and create customers for life in any market. Total Expert’s next-generation Customer Intelligence solution provides financial institutions with the most relevant insights to understand customer needs, deliver personalized messaging, and drive the next best action throughout their financial journey.

Since launching Customer Intelligence in 2022, Total Expert has surfaced more than 289,000 insights and automated Journeys that have led to over $10.9B in loan applications and $5.8B in funded loans; many of these loans stemmed from re-engaged leads and former customers that would have otherwise been missed.

This next phase of Customer Intelligence introduces equity enrichment to the list of tools loan officers can tap to identify and capitalize on opportunities sourced within their existing database. Equity enrichment enables customers to leverage equity data points—equity amounts, equity percentage, loan-to-value (LTV) ratios, LTV change, and remaining balances—in customer segmentations to uncover even more opportunities for loan officers. Customer Intelligence will soon also include credit improvement and life event insights that provide an even richer profile of every customer—identifying needs and intent and growing deeper customer relationships.

“With a shifting market, our top priority is to support our customers’ immediate need to drive growth and retention,” said Joe Welu, founder and CEO of Total Expert. “Our latest product release delivers another critically important and valuable milestone in our Customer Intelligence roadmap as we help customers turn their existing database into a powerful deal engine and centralize lead generation.”

Further, in today’s market, many lenders are purchasing leads in addition to their own marketing and in-house lead generation efforts. Total Expert’s new advanced lead management capabilities provide an end-to-end solution for lenders to intake, route, and engage leads—all on a single platform. By streamlining the tools and data necessary for lead management, Total Expert is helping financial institutions work efficiently and respond in real-time to the latest market changes.

Also with this release, Total Expert continues to grow an industry-leading partner ecosystem, including new and enhanced integrations with point-of-sale providers SimpleNexus and Floify, recruiting data provider InGenius, pricing engine Optimal Blue, Encompass, and Salesforce.

FlashIntel, a pioneering Go-to-Market intelligence firm, is thrilled to announce a successful $10 million seed and angel investment round, backed by prominent investors including Celtic House Venture Partners, Uphonest Capital, and Hat-Trick Capital.

With its vast sales intelligence database, FlashIntel is uniquely positioned to assist APAC companies in optimizing their global Go-to-Market (GTM) strategies, particularly in the US, Europe, and Japan. The platform offers comprehensive data on companies and potential prospects, coupled with advanced sales automation tools such as sequencing, parallel dialing and cadence. A standout feature is its integration with large language models, ensuring businesses receive the most accurate and actionable insights.

Yi Shi, the founder of FlashIntel, commented on the occasion, "Our vision is to revolutionize the way businesses approach GTM strategies. With FlashIntel, companies can access a wealth of data and tools, all designed to streamline and enhance their sales and marketing efforts. Our platform, FlashInfo, is a testament to our commitment to excellence, as reflected in the numerous success stories shared by our clients."

This new funding will enable FlashIntel to further enhance its platform, ensuring businesses have the resources they need to expand and succeed in the global market. As the demand for effective GTM solutions grows, FlashIntel is poised to lead the way, offering unparalleled support to businesses aiming for international success.