CivicScience, a leading provider of first-party, privacy-centric audience data, and Basis Technologies, a global provider of programmatic advertising and media automation solutions, have joined forces to power omnichannel advertising and measurement among influential voter audiences.

The collaboration between CivicScience and Basis marks a significant milestone in audience targeting and media optimization. Leveraging CivicScience's extensive repository of first-party data and advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) algorithms, the new solution empowers media professionals to create and target highly relevant political audience segments with unparalleled speed, scale, and precision.

"We are thrilled to announce our partnership with Basis Technologies and the launch of this transformative solution," said John Dick, CEO of CivicScience. "With our combined expertise and cutting-edge technology, we empower media buyers and planners to unlock the full potential of their campaigns by delivering highly relevant messaging to the right audiences at the right time."

By harnessing the power of CivicScience's comprehensive self-reported, large-scale polling data and sophisticated NLP capabilities, media buyers and planners can now access a wealth of insights to inform the political advertising strategies they activate through the Basis platform. CivicScience conducts large, Census-representative surveys of U.S. adults through unobstructed polling applications embedded in the content of a vast, demographically, and geographically diverse network of partner websites. This innovative approach enables advertisers to understand diverse political audience segments' nuanced preferences, sentiments, and behaviors, allowing for more effective audience segmentation and targeting across various platforms.

"Basis Technologies and CivicScience are empowering marketers with capabilities to influence public opinion and sentiment, which is crucial in an election year where voters are fragmented and divided," said Tyler Kelly, president, Basis Technologies. "Combining CivicScience's robust audience data with our media automation technology enables our clients to make data-driven decisions to deliver the most compelling messages to voters, influencers, and thought leaders at scale on any digital channel."

The partnership between CivicScience and Basis Technologies underscores a shared commitment to innovation and excellence in the advertising industry. Together, they are paving the way for a new era of audience targeting and media optimization that lifts the standards for effective advertising and respects consumer privacy.

Today, Midjourney announced that it has joined LOT Network, the world's largest patent licensing platform. LOT Network is a collaborative initiative that seeks to protect the innovation ecosystem against abusive litigation from patent assertion entities (PAEs, sometimes referred to as "patent trolls"). LOT Network members have access to a patent marketplace that enables companies to buy and sell patents without broker fees.

Today, Midjourney announced that it has joined LOT Network, the world's largest patent licensing platform. LOT Network is a collaborative initiative that seeks to protect the innovation ecosystem against abusive litigation from patent assertion entities (PAEs, sometimes referred to as "patent trolls"). LOT Network members have access to a patent marketplace that enables companies to buy and sell patents without broker fees.

As a part of joining the network, LOT Network member Meta will transfer several AI-related patents to Midjourney. This transfer demonstrates Meta's commitment to LOT Network's core mission and helps bolster Midjourney's patent portfolio with access to Meta's world-class portfolio.

"Receiving several of Meta's AI patents is important to Midjourney as we continue to grow and scale, and further strengthens our patent program," said Max Sills, General Counsel at Midjourney. "Our membership in LOT Network offers us important benefits like the ability to collaborate with companies within the community and to buy patents from those who have an abundance of high-quality assets."

"LOT Network fosters innovation by protecting companies from abusive PAE litigation," said Jeremiah Chan, Head of Patents, Licensing & Open Source, Meta. "As a company with a robust patent portfolio, we are pleased to be able to transfer assets to a fellow LOT Network member. By welcoming Midjourney to the LOT community and sharing our patents as part of their membership, we aim to empower companies to support a healthy innovation ecosystem."

"We are glad that LOT is a platform to allow companies to share innovation," said Ken Seddon, CEO of LOT Network. "The LOT patent sale platform is a great way for those with patents to easily sell their valuable patent assets to those who need them. LOT has many companies whose revenue growth has exceeded the speed at which their patent portfolios could grow to protect their innovation. These companies can purchase patents through the platform to defend themselves and diversify their patent portfolios."

Streamlined integrations and go-to-market support will expand ecosystem and accelerate successful adoption of AI

Pinecone, the vector database company making AI knowledgeable, announced the launch of the Pinecone Partner Program. The program lets software providers become part of the critical AI ecosystem by offering streamlined access to the market-leading vector database inside their products. Expanded and streamlined access for developers to the vector database inside their existing tools will dramatically accelerate successful deployments of AI applications.

The Pinecone vector database is a key component of the AI tech stack, helping companies solve one of the biggest challenges in deploying GenAI solutions — hallucinations — by allowing them to store, search, and find the most relevant and up-to-date information from company data and send that context to Large Language Models (LLMs) with every query. This workflow is called Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), and with Pinecone, it aids in providing relevant, accurate, and fast responses from search or GenAI applications to end users. Pinecone is the market and technology leader, with a large existing ecosystem of integrated solutions and cloud partners.

"Developers want a simple workflow even if their projects are incredibly ambitious," said Edo Liberty, Founder & CEO of Pinecone. "Pinecone is used alongside other core parts of the AI stack such as data processing, application monitoring, and model providers, so it's critically important to developers that these solutions work together seamlessly and reliably — this partner program is a huge leap in achieving that."

The new program provides select partners with benefits to deliver competitive AI-building capabilities to their customers. They include streamlined integration options for a seamless user experience, usage reporting for greater visibility, and sales, marketing, and technical support to drive successful adoption. The program is launching with industry-leading and rapidly rising companies as launch partners, including Anyscale, Confluent, LangChain, Mistral, Monte Carlo, Nexla, Pulumi, Qwak, Together.ai, Vectorize, and Unstructured, with more to be announced.

"With Apache Kafka® and Apache Flink® together as a complete data streaming platform, Confluent provides a simple solution for accessing and processing data streams from across the entire business to build a real-time, contextualized, and trustworthy data foundation to fuel GenAI applications," said Andrew Sellers, Head of Technology Strategy at Confluent. "As part of the Pinecone Partner Program, we'll be providing Pinecone users with even more metadata tied to these data streams — helping them to uncover more insights from data provenance and unlock greater value from RAG-enabled workloads."

"Three-click integration between Pinecone and Unstructured will enable teams to provide LLMs access to key internal documents within minutes," said Brian Raymond, Founder & CEO of Unstructured. "By leveraging Pinecone's partner ecosystem, you can ensure your LLMs stay up-to-date and know about your organization."

CrateDB, the enterprise database for time series, documents, and vectors, today announced its availability on Google Cloud Marketplace, dedicated to building the most open and innovative AI ecosystem. This strategic move allows businesses to seamlessly integrate CrateDB with their Google Cloud infrastructure, enabling them to leverage data in their time series and AI projects and develop meaningful insights like never before.

The availability of CrateDB on Google Cloud Marketplace represents a significant step forward for businesses aiming to optimize operational efficiency and unlock innovative data-driven opportunities. CrateDB is specifically designed to handle the scale and complexity of today's digital world, providing users with the capability to query and analyze vast amounts of data in real time.

"Bringing CrateDB to Google Cloud Marketplace will help customers quickly deploy, manage, and grow database tools on Google Cloud's trusted, global infrastructure," said Dai Vu, Managing Director, Marketplace & ISV GTM Programs at Google Cloud. "CrateDB can now securely scale and support customers on their digital transformation journeys."

Key Features and Benefits:

• Seamless Integration: CrateDB can now be deployed directly from Google Cloud Marketplace, simplifying the process of setting up and managing your database infrastructure on Google Cloud.
• Scalability: Designed for massive scale, CrateDB allows businesses to effortlessly scale their database operations in line with their growth, without compromising on performance.
• Real-Time Performance: CrateDB's unique architecture ensures that data is not only stored efficiently but also available for real-time insights, enabling businesses to make faster, more informed decisions.
• Cost Efficiency: By leveraging the Google Cloud infrastructure, CrateDB users can enjoy a cost-effective solution for managing and analyzing large volumes of data.

Lars Färnström, CEO of CrateDB, expressed his enthusiasm about the launch: "Making CrateDB available on Google Cloud Marketplace is a milestone for us. It not only broadens our reach but also makes it incredibly easy for businesses to adopt and benefit from real-time insights from their massive amount of data. We're excited to see how this integration will empower our customers to innovate and streamline their operations."

The availability of CrateDB on Google Cloud Marketplace is more than just a technical integration; it's about providing businesses with the tools they need to drive real-time insights from their data. With CrateDB and Google Cloud, businesses can now unlock new levels of performance, scalability, and efficiency in their data management and analytics initiatives.

Qlik®, a global leader in data integration, analytics, and AI, announced today that it has been recognized by CRN^®, a brand of The Channel Company, on the inaugural 2024 AI 100 list in the “AI for Data and Analytics” category. Vendors on the AI 100 list are recognized for the strength of their AI portfolios, commitment to innovation, and ability to support IT channel partners as they bring AI solutions to life.

The launch of the AI 100 list comes at a critical time in the IT market as solution providers are making significant investments in their AI portfolios that will drive unprecedented opportunities for growth in 2024 and beyond. This list spotlights vendors at the forefront of the AI revolution with offerings in areas such as cloud, data center and edge, software, analytics, and cybersecurity.

While excitement for what technology tools such as AI and Generative AI can deliver continues to build, Qlik’s Generative AI Benchmark Report found that leaders are eager to surround these tools with the right data strategies and technologies to fully realize their transformative potential. Recognizing that leveraging AI effectively requires an exceptional data foundation, companies such as Nortera are continuing to focus on ensuring that their data is well-integrated, governed, traceable, timely, and relevant.

"We're excited to be working with Qlik to leverage our data to make better decisions and achieve greater business outcomes,” said Maxime Laforest, Business Solutions and BI Director at Nortera. “With our sights set on eventually leveraging AI in our business, we appreciate that the depth of Qlik’s solutions can enable us to do this effectively."

"We're deeply honored to be recognized on the CRN AI 100 list,” said David Zember, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Channels and Alliances. “This accolade highlights our commitment to leveraging AI in every part of the Qlik Platform, enabling our partners and customers to achieve transformational outcomes. It also underscores the strategic importance of our world-class ecosystem of alliances that we’ve worked so hard to build. At Qlik, we're excited to see the impact of our innovations for our customers and partners, harnessing the full potential of AI to drive success."

“We are thrilled to honor the technology vendors on the 2024 AI 100 list for their commitment to advancing artificial intelligence solutions in the IT channel,” said Jennifer Follett, VP, U.S. Content, and Executive Editor, CRN at The Channel Company. “Each company on the list earned their spot because of their dedication to helping channel partners build innovative AI solutions that transform customers and empower success. We look forward to seeing how they contribute to AI excellence in the channel going forward.”

The 2024 CRN AI 100 list will be featured in the April issue of CRN Magazine and online at www.CRN.com/AI100 beginning April 8, 2024.

New Relic, the all-in-one observability platform for every engineer, announced Christopher Jones as the company’s next Chief Revenue Officer. He will lead the company’s core sales operations worldwide, including the go-to-market and renewals teams, and drive the company’s channel and partner strategy.

Jones brings three decades of experience with global sales teams, channels, large enterprise and high velocity sales to New Relic. He has worked in very competitive markets and has produced highly performant sales teams. He most recently served as Chief Revenue Officer at Appian, a low-code business process platform, and Jones’ team was awarded the Best Team in Sales by Comparably. He has also held executive sales and partnership positions at Fuze, Qlik Technologies, Infoblox, Polycom, Avaya, and Cisco.

“Chris is an exciting addition to the company,” said New Relic CEO Ashan Willy. “He has extensive experience with global sales teams, channels, large enterprise, and high velocity sales in very competitive markets. His experience and focus on customer value will be indispensable as the company navigates through its next phase of growth.”

“New Relic is at the forefront of the observability market with a strong product, business model, and team,” said New Relic Chief Revenue Officer Christopher Jones. “The company’s continued focus on innovation and customer success is unmatched in the market. I look forward to working closely with Relics across the organization as we help leading companies achieve greatness with New Relic. ”

The rebranding initiative reflects the company's continued commitment to innovation, growth, and enhancing its market position as the industry-leading HVAC energy optimization software provider.

Highly Experienced Marketing and Technology Executive to Lead Next Stage of Growth and Innovation 

Madison Logic, the leading global digital account-based marketing (ABM) platform, today announced that Keith Turco has been named as Chief Executive Officer, effective May 1, 2024, to lead the Company’s next stage of growth and innovation.

Mr. Turco brings to Madison Logic three decades of experience driving corporate growth with expertise in business strategy, marketing technologies, and advertising. Most recently, he served as Chief Growth Officer at MERGE, where he led double-digit new business growth. Mr. Turco previously served as Chief Commercial Officer & President, Americas of EVRYTHNG, Inc., where he was instrumental in driving global strategy and accelerating growth prior to its sale to Digimarc Corporation. He has also served as EVP, Worldwide Managing Director of Ogilvy, where he was a member of Ogilvy’s Global Leadership Team; President/CEO of gyro, a global B2B agency network with 15 worldwide offices; and SVP, Head of Global Corporate Marketing of CA Technologies.

Madison Logic has established itself as the industry’s leading platform for account-based marketing, applying proprietary technologies and data to help B2B companies improve their sales and marketing results by increasing return on marketing spend and accelerating sales cycles. The Company has built a customer base featuring many of the largest and most sophisticated enterprise clients located across the globe and is poised to capitalize on continuing strong demand for digital marketing services by delivering the industry’s most innovative and effective solutions.

Mr. Turco succeeds Tom O’Regan, who has served as CEO since 2014 and oversaw the Company’s transformation into the market leader it is today.

Mr. O’Regan commented, “Over the past decade, Madison Logic has become a go-to partner for businesses seeking the very best in enterprise demand generation and marketing. As I hand the baton to Keith, the Company is well positioned to build on this strong foundation, further enhance its value proposition to clients, and drive long-term growth. I am extremely proud of what we’ve accomplished and wish Keith and our outstanding team all the best as they build on our momentum.”

Mr. Turco added, “I am thrilled to join Madison Logic and work together with its incredibly talented team to take the business to the next level for the benefit of clients and team members. With a best-in-class platform, proven track record, and commitment to remaining at the forefront of its field, the Company has compelling opportunities and tremendous upside. I look forward to leveraging my background in integrating strategy, commercial operations, technology, and marketing to lead Madison Logic’s next chapter of growth.”