Acquisition allows Virtusa to expand its presence in Europe to meet growing demand for business transformation, modernization and cost optimization initiatives

Virtusa Corporation , a global provider of digital strategy, digital engineering and information technology (IT) services and solutions, today announced the acquisition of ITMAGINATION., a leading technology consultancy headquartered in Warsaw, Poland. This strategic move reflects Virtusa's commitment to enhancing its digital transformation offerings and expanding its nearshore delivery capabilities.

Founded in 2008, ITMAGINATION has established itself as a trusted partner for organizations seeking innovative solutions to complex business challenges. With a focus on digital transformation, cloud computing, data analytics and artificial intelligence, ITMAGINATION has earned a reputation for providing tailored technology solutions that drive business growth and efficiency for clients in Europe and North America.

The acquisition of ITMAGINATION significantly strengthens Virtusa's capabilities to offer advanced nearshore delivery in Poland, leveraging the country's deep tech talent pool and strong engineering culture and competency, which is reflected in its rankings high in skill indices. By combining Virtusa's deep expertise and global delivery model with ITMAGINATION's technical excellence and strong local presence in Europe , the combined entity is poised to deliver added value to customers looking to accelerate their digital transformation.

“We are delighted to welcome ITMAGINATION to the Virtusa family. Their deep technical expertise and strong track record in delivering transformative digital solutions perfectly aligns with Virtusa's vision of enabling businesses to thrive in the digital age. Together, we will be better positioned to meet the evolving needs of our customers and drive innovation at scale,” said Santosh Thomas , Managing Director of Virtusa.

Dawid Łaziński, co-founder of ITMAGINATION, added: “Joining forces with Virtusa represents an exciting opportunity for ITMAGINATION to amplify our impact, reach and advance our mission of accelerating innovation. Together, we will leverage our combined strengths and areas of expertise to deliver even greater value to our clients, helping them navigate the complexities of digital transformation and achieve their business goals. »

The alignment between Virtusa and ITMAGINATION is evident in the companies' missions — Virtusa's engineering-driven approach and ITMAGINATION's mission to accelerate innovation. Powered by some of Europe 's best technology talent , this partnership will help our clients leverage the best technology in the most efficient way possible to streamline their operations, solve their toughest business challenges and achieve bold transformation.

Financial details of the transaction are not being disclosed.

Digital entrepreneur and former financial data executive Huang, joins Fortune to expand and innovate Fortune Analytics, a new unit based on its authoritative global lists and rankings 

Fortune Media announced today the appointment of Georgene Huang as General Manager, Fortune Analytics. In this newly created position, she will develop and execute go-to market strategies for a range of Fortune's iconic lists and rankings. She will be based in New York and report to Anastasia Nyrkovskaya, Fortune's Chief Strategy Officer.

An entrepreneurial executive with a track record of building and scaling innovative businesses and products, Huang co-founded and was CEO of Fairygodboss, a digital HR tech platform serving corporate employers and professional women. Her experience in technology and SaaS businesses has included serving as the Head of Institutional Products, the enterprise product division, at Dow Jones, and Managing Director at Bloomberg Ventures. Georgene began her career as a financial research analyst on Wall Street.

In her new role, she will oversee innovation and expansion of Fortune's lists and rankings, including the Fortune 500 and Fortune Global 500, among others, and working with colleagues across the globe to develop the organization's industry-leading business lists and data insights.

"I'm thrilled to lead this amazing franchise and build upon the trusted, and globally recognized, Fortune lists that have been published for 70 years," said Huang. "Our unique data sets provide the ability to derive powerful, game-changing insights."

"As an accomplished strategist and product innovator, Georgene is the perfect leader to help build out and enhance Fortune's historical and new lists in the U.S., while collaborating with colleagues in Europe and Asia, to strengthen our data-driven product offerings," said Nyrkovskaya.

• The funding follows a record year for Pigment in which the company tripled its revenue, doubled its customer base globally, and on-boarded multiple major enterprise brands such as Unilever, Datadog, and Merck.

• ICONIQ Growth who spearheaded Pigment's Series C last year also led the Series D round, with participation from Sandberg Bernthal Venture Partners, IVP, Meritech, Greenoaks and Felix Capital.

• With the majority of the company's revenue now coming from North America, the capital will be used to expand Pigment's in-market support and accelerate product development

Pigment today announced a $145 million Series D funding round, led by ICONIQ Growth, who also spearheaded Pigment's Series C investment close to a year ago. Sandberg Bernthal Venture Partners as well as several other existing investors including IVP, Meritech, Greenoaks and Felix Capital have also participated in the round, demonstrating continued confidence in Pigment's long-term growth trajectory.

Pigment is a business planning platform that helps organizations plan ahead and make better strategic decisions.

Impressive growth and momentum - particularly in North America and the enterprise - attracted funding

The funding follows a successful year for Pigment as the company tripled its annual recurring revenue, and doubled its customer base globally. The number of enterprise customers using Pigment also tripled. Global brands including Unilever, Merck, Keolis, Datadog, KAYAK and 6sense have all chosen Pigment for its unique combination of usability and scalability needed to make accurate yet timely decisions. Pigment has expanded its partner network, collaborating with leading consulting firms such as Deloitte, Slalom and BearingPoint.

In the past year, Pigment has strengthened its North American presence - the company's largest market - following the opening of offices in New York and Toronto, along with several strategic hires. Notably, Jay Peir who joined as Global Head of Strategy from Tableau where he was EVP of Corporate Development and Strategy, and Sean Brophy as Global Head of Sales from Alteryx, where he led US Enterprise Sales. In France, Edouard Beaucourt is also joining from Snowflake as Pigment's Head of EMEA.

"Our north star has always been to combine an exceptional product and customer experience, so that organizations can build the right plans and execute on them quickly. This funding puts us in an even stronger position to continue fulfilling this commitment," said Eléonore Crespo, co-CEO, Pigment. "We're incredibly proud of the trust and confidence our investors place in the entire Pigment team, and we look forward to working alongside them as we enter the next phase of our journey."

Continued emphasis on product innovation means we've expanded into new use cases and enhanced Pigment with AI-capabilities

Central to Pigment's growth has been its ongoing emphasis on product innovation. On top of an already easy-to-use solution, notable product developments include generative AI capabilities to improve accessibility for all users and further adoption beyond the finance function. Today, more than 90% of Pigment customers use the platform across multiple departments, including finance, sales, HR, and supply chain.

We'll continue to grow responsibly and build a world class product that business teams love to use

Pigment will use the funds to continue driving innovation to fuel adoption of its planning platform. "Everything we do from a product perspective is designed to simplify decision making and increase agility at scale," said Romain Niccoli, co-CEO, Pigment. "This spans all elements of product development, from an AI-powered user experience, to innovating on Pigment's core infrastructure, to deliver the scalable and reliable solutions that enterprises expect."

Pigment also plans to accelerate its investments in generative AI to further support decision making and agility. Per Niccoli, "so far our generative AI investments have focussed on helping users get insights faster and build reports more efficiently. Over time, our vision is that we will go from gradual improvements in efficiency to AI acting as a true co-pilot in the decision-making process."

"Since leading Pigment's Series C less than a year ago, the company has successfully expanded into the enterprise market and across multiple functions and use cases much faster than we expected. This is testament to the extraordinary team and product Eléonore and Romain are building," said Seth Pierrepont, General Partner, ICONIQ Growth.

"We are exceptionally confident that Pigment is successfully addressing a clear and very large need in the market," said Matt Jacobson, General Partner, ICONIQ Growth. "This confidence in the market, product and team drove our enthusiasm to continue to support the company's continued success."

FOX Corporation today announced the launch of its expanded audience network and ad tech platform, AdRise.

Acquired as part of the Tubi deal in 2020, AdRise is an advanced, integrated technology platform for CTV and linear inventory that has evolved into an enterprise-wide platform for FOX. AdRise will now power OneFOX, FOX's cross portfolio inventory product which includes FOX Sports, FOX Entertainment, FOX News Media and Tubi.

"AdRise has a reputation as a first mover in CTV advertising and has pioneered and underpinned the growth of our Tubi streaming business from the very beginning. We're now extending the team and technology platform to power our audience network and video inventory across all of FOX, unlocking unique value for our agency and advertising partners," said Paul Cheesbrough, CEO of Tubi Media Group.

Advertising clients can now leverage the AdRise platform to unify inventory and audiences across linear, streaming and digital through a seamless, efficient, highly targeted media buying experience. It also provides inventory access and unified planning against streaming and linear video content across TV OS, web, gaming and mobile device platforms. The platform includes partnerships unlocking data integrations through AWS Clean Rooms and Snowflake, direct Demand Side Platform (DSP) integrations, Server to Server (S2S) ad serving and an ad experimentation framework.

"Our approach with AdRise breaks down the walls between media ecosystems, merging the scale of linear and the targeting of streaming into one centralized system," said Jeff Collins, President of Advertising Sales, Marketing and Brand Partnerships for Fox Corporation. "We've increased our focus and investment in ad tech to develop the tools brands need for today's evolving environment. In doing so, we're ensuring that transacting with the FOX Portfolio – no matter the mix of platforms – is easy, frictionless and, most importantly, effective."

Vulnerabilities include significant shortcomings in the scanning of email attachments for malicious documents, potentially putting millions of users worldwide at risk 

SquareX, a browser-security startup led by serial cybersecurity entrepreneur Vivek Ramachandran, today unveiled the results of its recent study, revealing a concerning reality about major email providers' inadequacies in safeguarding users against malicious document-based threats.

The study, conducted by SquareX's research and development team, involved analysing 100 malicious document samples, which were segmented into four distinct categories:

1. Original malicious document samples from MalwareBazaar
2. Slightly altered malicious document samples from MalwareBazaar, such as changes in metadata and file formats
3. Malicious document samples modified using attack tools that have existed for many years
4. Basic Macro-enabled documents that execute programs on user devices.

These samples were sent via a third-party email provider, ProtonMail, to several major email providers, including industry giants such as Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, AOL, and Apple iCloud Mail. The study revealed that while email providers like Gmail and Outlook demonstrated basic detection capabilities in identifying unmodified malicious document samples, they faltered in detecting modified malicious documents manipulated with readily accessible attack tools – exposing a glaring cybersecurity loophole that poses a potential threat to millions of users around the world.

Given the prevailing reliance on email services as secure communication channels, these findings raise important questions about the effectiveness of relying on existing email security measures and the false sense of security they may instill in millions of users and enterprises worldwide. While cyber threats are becoming increasingly sophisticated, email providers appear ill-prepared to detect and intercept these emerging threats, consequently leaving users to potential exploitation.

"The inadvertent discovery of this significant lapse in email security during our product enhancement process was startling," shared Vivek Ramachandran, the founder and CEO of SquareX. "Our intention in making these findings public is to ignite a dialogue on the urgent need for reinforced security measures and encourage email providers to either elevate their security protocols or transparently acknowledge their current limitations," added Vivek.

To bridge this security gap, SquareX has introduced an advanced in-browser malicious document scanning feature as a part of its browser extension, currently in beta. This move not only speaks of the company's commitment to making the web a safer place but also invites other companies to join forces in securing the web activities of users and enterprises from cyber-attacks.

Vinivia, the cutting-edge live streaming app, is set to make its highly anticipated debut in the U.S market today through the launch of its app and Vinivia Creator Community, with the first and exclusive 600 participating creators who will have access to advanced technology that allows them full ownership of their content and the highest revenue share in the market.

"We are beyond thrilled to bring this innovative, interactive and top-of-the-line app to the market. At Vinivia, we believe in empowering creators and fostering meaningful connections between content creators and their audience. With Vinivia, creators have the tools and support they need to thrive and become the next star of tomorrow. We're incredibly proud of the end result, and we know Vinivia will drive the creator economy forward significantly,"  said Co-Founder and CEO, Stefan Graf.

"Our app is designed for creators, by creators, offering transparency over monetization models and providing creators with up to 80% of total revenue generated from their content, which they fully own, allowing them to monetize their passions," added Co-Founder and CFO, Marcello Genovese.

Vinivia is poised to revolutionize the live streaming landscape with its innovative features and pro-creator ethos.The Vinivia Creator Community is a program for creators to have a direct partnership with the brand to maximize revenue potential, monetize content, and unlock more revenue through unique monetization tools. Vinivia's advanced app features AI-powered content suggestions for an improved user experience, flexible creator revenue share, and under two second latency, with AR advertising technology that seamlessly integrates products into creators streaming content.

To celebrate the launch, Vinivia is hosting the inaugural Vinivia Awards, a live streaming extravaganza event in Los Angeles at Optimist Studios, this evening. The event will recognize top creators in categories such as Live Streamer of The Year, Most Creative Live Streamer, and Best Newcomer Live Streamer, with a $10,000 grand prize awarded to each winner. The awards ceremony will be live streamed on the Vinivia app for all consumers to follow along in real-time.

Content creators are encouraged to become early adopters and join as Vinivia creators, gaining access to a supportive community and innovative tools to showcase their talent. To join Vinivia's Creator Community, sign up here: creators.vinivia.com

Vinivia was founded in 2020 by Stefan Graf and Marcello Genovese. Vinivia's visionary founders bring a wealth of expertise and success from their previous tech ventures where they pioneered interactive broadcasting and live streaming solutions that caught the eye of industry giants Meta and YouTube. Now with Vinivia, Graf and Genovese are once again at the forefront of innovation, setting their sights on an ambitious goal – revolutionizing the way users connect, share, and engage through live streaming.

The new study provides guidance for marketers, brands, and developers to meet key retention and engagement milestones amidst rapid omnichannel transformation 

OneSignal, the world's leading customer engagement platform, today released its annual State of Customer Engagement Report which illustrates the benefits of incorporating various messaging channels, content, and engagement strategies for marketers to achieve their overarching goals in 2024. The insights for mobile marketers are based on key engagement statistics informed by over a million businesses that use OneSignal as their customer engagement platform to send over 12 billion messages daily.

The report comes at a time when user behavior and the app industry continue to evolve amid rapid technological transformation. With the collective number of apps now available to consumers and consumer retention spans continuing to shrink, benchmarking app success is a growing challenge for companies competing in the mobile landscape.

“Through our work in helping companies navigate omnichannel challenges, we’re finding that providing value, relevance, and utility to customers from a messaging and engagement standpoint are now equal non-negotiables and that companies can’t sacrifice if they want to succeed,” says Josh Wetzel, Chief Revenue Officer at OneSignal. “The insights we’ve compiled in this report serve as a barometer for companies seeking clarity in the dynamic mobile landscape and provide essential guidance to help them achieve their goals.”

Key findings uncovered within the report include the following:

• Multichannel engagement is necessary for success. Companies that leverage more than one messaging channel to engage users increase average engagement by 35.8%. OneSignal also found that apps that use an automated multichannel messaging automation workflow see 13.6% higher average 30-day retention rates.

• Effective onboarding messages are critical to driving retention. OneSignal’s data revealed apps that implement onboarding messages have 24% higher install-to-purchase conversion rates. Those that leverage more than one channel to send them have higher 1-day, 7-day, and 30-day retention rates.

• Email is having a resurgence as a revenue driver. Apps that use email as part of their omnichannel engagement strategy report the highest install-to-purchase conversion rates. When used with push notifications, email can help balance brevity and depth in ongoing messaging strategy. Simply put, it’s not something mobile apps can ignore in their growth plans.

• Apple’s Live Activities are an effective engagement tool. Apps using Live Activities have 23.7% higher average 30-day retention rates, solidifying the value of using the lock screen’s real estate for providing real-time updates.

• Personalized notifications are a must for optimal app engagement. Notifications that use personalized content have a 344% higher engagement rate than notifications that don't. Additionally, apps that use localization, such as adapting messaging for language, time zone, and cultural differences, have a 160% higher engagement rate than notifications that don't.

Based on the insights provided, the 2024 State of Customer Engagement report serves as a guide for marketers and brands seeking more clarity in evaluating their engagement solutions. As diversification in communication becomes more crucial and data-driven marketing becomes even more vital to success, the report provides a roadmap for achieving omnichannel success in both these areas.

New capabilities offer enhanced personalization and precision for marketing and advertising campaigns

GrowthLoop, a leading composable customer data platform (CDP) provider, today announced its expanded partnership with Google Cloud to continue transforming marketing with generative artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. The solution is built leveraging Google Cloud's BigQuery and Gemini models and GrowthLoop's composable CDP. 

With generative marketing, marketing teams can quickly segment and activate their customer data in BigQuery based on generative AI suggestions. This helps marketers increase campaign launch velocity, experimentation, and personalized cross-channel content delivery by as much as 10x — and reach their full potential as drivers of business. Key capabilities include:

1.  Audience Studio: Users can instantly generate a recommended list of precise audience targets, powered by Gemini models. These suggestions are based on customer data in BigQuery and by describing campaign goals (i.e. acquisition, cross-sell, churn winback, etc.) in natural language.
   
   
2. Audience Discovery: GrowthLoop proactively generates audience suggestions based on the user's most active, engaged audiences. This capability allows marketers to more quickly and accurately experiment with new concepts, measure results, and drive outcomes for KPIs (i.e. return on ad spend (ROAS), customer lifetime value, etc.)
   
   
3. Audience Builder with Generative AI Context: GrowthLoop uses Gemini models to generate descriptions of connected data fields in BigQuery, making segmentation and audience building even easier for marketers.
   
   
4. Continuous Improvement and Optimization (Upcoming): Marketers will be able to increase time-to-launch for cross-channel experiments and measurement. Using Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG), they can enable generative models to automatically optimize based on historical results. The more a team uses generative marketing on GrowthLoop, the more informed its generative assets will become.

"With the combined power of GrowthLoop withBigQuery, and Gemini models, generative marketing will transform the way marketers use data to drive revenue," said Chris Sell, co-founder and co-CEO of GrowthLoop. "Generative marketing will empower marketers to increase their audience and journey launch velocity, experimentation, and campaign optimization by 10x above even the most advanced composable CDP deployments."

Audience Orchestration on BigQuery and Generative AI Audiences powered by Gemini models are both available now. You can learn more about generative marketing with GrowthLoop, BigQuery, and Gemini models at Google Cloud Next '24 from April 9 - 11 at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. GrowthLoop is located at Booth #1350, as well as in the Generative AI Pavilion. GrowthLoop is also participating in the panel discussion "How leading software companies are innovating with BigQuery and generative AI" (Tuesday, April 9 from 04:45 PM - 05:30 PM local time in ANA109).