ZEGOCLOUD, a leading global cloud communication service provider, has made significant strides in delivering seamless, ultra-low latency experiences for live streaming and real-time video interactions.

With rigorous R&D and accumulated know-how in serving customer needs in real-time communication (RTC), ZEGOCLOUD has achieved a 90% success rate of millisecond-level experience in TTFF (Time to First Frame) globally. This translates into an exceptional TTFF of 79 milliseconds on average for live video calling and streaming platforms, supporting them in avoiding revenue losses associated with latency issues.

This optimization is crucial as it fosters positive first impressions, as the speed and fluidity of video loading and real-time engagement are pivotal for user satisfaction and retention on live streaming apps. "Studies show in live streaming, if it takes over two seconds to start, viewers start dropping off, and with each extra second, the platform is losing another 6% of the audience," stated Kuk Jiang, co-founder of ZEGOCLOUD.

ZEGOCLOUD's industry-leading TTFF optimization has proven successful in enabling businesses to enhance user connections, minimize churn rates, and ultimately increase revenue. With a success rate of over 95% for TTFF within 2 seconds in critical regions such as Europe, America, and Southeast Asia, ZEGOCLOUD's solutions are poised to help platforms attract and retain users and drive substantial increases in revenue across various industries.

Purpose-built for industries from social entertainment to interactive live commerce, ZEGOCLOUD offers a full suite of real-time video engagement capabilities, including animated virtual gifts, in-app mini games, in-app chat, content moderation, beauty filters, cloud recording, and more. "By integrating ZEGOCLOUD, businesses can concentrate on their core operations and deliver high-quality live video to global audiences, streamlining the user experience and cutting down on costs and complexities associated with multiple third-party service integrations," added Kuk.

ZEGOCLOUD's specialized SDKs address common pain points like network complexity across regions and diverse device compatibility. Advanced features such as CDN live streaming, L3 acceleration, and customizable regional service settings provide robust, flexible solutions for different business scenarios.

Euno sets new standard in data governance by enabling teams to seamlessly build, govern, and evolve data models, while ensuring analyst autonomy and business alignment

Euno, a data startup, today announced it has raised $6.25 million in seed funding and emerged from stealth to launch a dynamic governance solution for data teams at large and scale-up organizations. Euno’s “soft governance” approach empowers business analysts to innovate freely and leverage their expertise in structured query language (SQL) and business intelligence (BI) tools for rapid delivery of data products, while also optimizing centralized modeling governance to drive consistency across an organization.

Business analysts are essential for answering business questions and enabling data-driven decisions. However, too much freedom can lead to data chaos, including inconsistent metrics, duplicates, and siloed logic. As organizations scale, central data teams – which are traditionally in charge of data governance – struggle to balance the autonomy of business analysts with the governance of consistent data models.

“There is constant tension between enabling an analysts’ ability to explore with the need of data teams for governed and consistent data models,” said Mark Nelson, Venture Partner at Madrona, and former CEO and President at Tableau. “Euno offers the best of both worlds by enabling analysts to work in the tools they love, while promoting artifacts that analysts are already doing to a governed data layer.”

The integration of AI-driven analytics and advanced AI features within widely used BI tools underscores the heightened importance of data model governance even more. The ever-evolving business logic, shaped by business analysts, must be carefully coded into the data layer through swiftly governed processes. This is essential not only to maintain the consistency of data models, which is pivotal for training AI, but also to bolster the production of trustworthy insights driven by AI.

Euno serves as a pivotal tool in streamlining collaboration between central data teams and business analysts. It detects newly modeled business logic within integrated BI applications like Looker and Tableau, and guides users through the process of integrating these logical components into the shared data model (i.e. “shift left”). This includes identifying new logic, automatically generating code to capture this logic at the data layer, and synchronizing changes back to BI applications. This ensures an aligned and central source of truth for an organization’s business logic.

“Euno reduces toil with automation and unlocks business logic for data analysts and data engineers, which is a win for organizations,” said Tatsiana Maskalevich, Director of Data Science and Engineering at Netflix. “Not only is Euno empowering the data engineering team, but it's also addressing the critical aspect of cross-functional collaboration with business analysts.”

At the core of Euno’s technology is a business logic discovery tool that equips data teams with automated business logic mapping across platforms. This tool offers a unified catalog and an end-to-end lineage view of business logic for efficient exploration and management of data model calculations, descriptions, and usage. Euno integrates with dbt™️ and also optimizes the implementation and expansion of dbt, which is designed to meet organizations at any stage of their dbt journey – whether they have fully transitioned to dbt or are still managing legacy logic. Euno represents a paradigm shift, aligning business analyst insights with the methodical expertise of data teams. This approach leverages the power of collaboration at scale, setting a dbt-first standard for data model governance.

“Based on conversations with more than 250 data teams, we discovered they struggle to foster a self-service data analytics culture as they scale. What surprised us was the root cause – data model governance solutions haven’t caught up with the modern data stack. Organizations deal with collaboration bottlenecks, data inconsistencies, and soaring costs,” said Sarah Levy, co-founder and CEO at Euno. “Eager to solve this problem, we’ve assembled a world-class team of engineering and data analytics professionals. Our mission is clear – to untangle the toughest knots for data teams and give peace of mind to organizations with their data governance. No matter how fast the company scales.”

Leadership Team and Funding
Euno was founded in 2023 by Sarah Levy and Eyal Firstenberg – tech leaders with more than 40 years of combined experience in solving cutting-edge problems. Levy, co-founder and CEO, previously served as CTO at Sight Diagnostics and Firstenberg, co-founder and CTO, previously founded LightCyber (acquired by Palo Alto Networks). Also, Levy and Firstenberg are Israel Defense Forces (IDF) veterans. Levy previously served as the head of the cybersecurity department in the IDF and Firstenberg previously served as an officer in Unit 8200 within the Israeli Intelligence Corps.

Euno has raised $6.25 million in seed funding led by 10D with participation from INT3 – two leading early stage Israeli funds investing in enterprise software​​. The round also includes notable angel investors including Barr Moses (co-founder and CEO at Monte Carlo), Lior Gavish (co-founder and CTO at Monte Carlo), and Yoni Broyde (former co-founder and CEO at Alooma). The advisory board includes Mark Nelson (Venture Partner at Madrona, and former CEO and President at Tableau) and Tatsiana Maskalevich (Director of Data Science and Engineering at Netflix).

Introducing the future of creator storefronts made for social with Trnd.

Trnd, the new creator commerce platform, is poised to redefine the way brands and creators convert followers to customers across all channels. Trnd is excited to introduce a solution designed to enhance the effectiveness and profitability of influencer collaborations. Although 78% of companies plan to incorporate influencers into their marketing strategies, the status quo of referral links and discount codes creates a poor experience for the consumer, eroding the brand experience program ROI, and creator value. Trnd offers a unique way for influencers to create their own multi-brand social stores that enables instant transactions without leaving their content on any channel. Unlike link trees or affiliate links that lead to multiple clicks, consumer frustration, and poor ROI, Trnd enables an elevated social shopping experience that maximizes conversion and increases revenue. 

“At Shoptalk 2024, the stage is set for unveiling the latest in retail innovation, and Trnd is at the heart of this transformation. With the pace at which social commerce is evolving, we’ve yet to see a solution that truly meets the needs of the brand, creator and consumer in a single unified platform and seamless experience. With Trnd, we are combining a superior consumer experience that drives instant social transactions from creator storefronts, with a robust brand platform that offers clear, measurable insights into the impact of creator programs. We're excited to showcase how Trnd can streamline and empower influencer marketing strategies for brands looking to navigate the future of retail,” states David Abbey, CEO and Co-Founder of Trnd.

Anticipating significant growth in social commerce, which is projected to reach USD 6.2 trillion by 2030 at a CAGR of 31.6%, Trnd addresses several main challenges: transforming the social buying experience for consumers; unlocking data and streamlining brand management for creators into a single app; and surfacing key data, ROI and analytics for brands measuring influencer campaign ROI. A staggering 91% of shoppers are more likely to return to a brand with a satisfying checkout process, according to a 2022 PYMNTS report. Unlike the status quo of social shopping experience that is riddled with friction and conversion barriers, Trnd’s instant checkout enables a positive buying experience, strengthening the relationship between the creator, the brand and the consumer.

While driving conversion is critical, measuring influencer campaign performance across the entire cycle from social engagement to sales is what’s driving program success and resource allocation. Yet, measuring performance beyond engagement metrics remains a challenge for most teams. Trnd offers a solution that bridges social engagement with sales performance, equipping brands with detailed insights and analytics for every stage of the influencer program funnel, from engagement to influencer performance to detailed CAC metrics and real-time ROI for gifting programs. For Trnd, this is a unique differentiator and delivers insights previously unavailable in a single platform. This enables precise tuning of influencer collaborations and allows creators to quantifiably demonstrate their impact on sales, marking a new standard in the creator economy.

The platform includes a customer-facing creator social storefront, a creator app for personalized product curation, and a brand platform that provides:

• Strategic business insights for decision-making with advanced analytics
• Integration with Shopify and other e-commerce platforms for seamless operations
• Instant checkout across social and digital platforms
• Automatic payouts to creators
• An automated gifting system to streamline and scale gifting programs
• A brand discovery marketplace and creator campaign flow to grow and diversify campaigns

“With Trnd, we're not just launching another platform; we're offering a scalable solution that links influencer activity with sales outcomes," Abbey explains. Our work with brands like Nena Skincare and Organifi demonstrates the power of enhancing the creator-to-consumer connection with actionable data. The possibilities are endless, when you think of click-to-sale conversion rates of 13% PushUp Chalk has seen in a single weekend.”

Shoptalk Las Vegas attendees are invited to experience Trnd's seamless social checkout firsthand and receive exclusive gifts from Organifi and Nena Skincare at Booth 1781 during Shoptalk Las Vegas.

It's a new day for your data. Cisco, supercharged by Splunk, will revolutionize the way companies harness data to connect and protect every aspect of their organizations. 

News summary

• Cisco is now uniquely poised to power, protect, and advance the AI revolution for customers
• Cisco will bring the full power of the network together with market-leading security and observability solutions
• With Splunk, Cisco becomes one of the largest software companies globally

Cisco today announced it completed the acquisition of Splunk, setting the foundation for delivering unparalleled visibility and insights across an organization's entire digital footprint.

To thrive in the new digital era, organizations must connect and protect all that they do. They need to connect the people, places, applications, data, and devices that power their business while protecting their entire digital footprint from cybersecurity threats, downtime, and other critical business risks.

Cisco will bring the full power of the network, together with market-leading security and observability solutions, to deliver a real-time unified view of the entire digital landscape, helping teams proactively defend critical infrastructure, prevent outages, and refine the network experience.

"We are thrilled to officially welcome Splunk to Cisco," said Chuck Robbins, Chair and CEO of Cisco. "As one of the world's largest software companies, we will revolutionize the way our customers leverage data to connect and protect every aspect of their organization as we help power and protect the AI revolution."

"Uniting Splunk and Cisco will bring tremendous value to our joint customers worldwide," said Gary Steele, Executive Vice President, General Manager, Splunk. "The combination of Cisco and Splunk will provide truly comprehensive visibility and insights across an organization's entire digital footprint, delivering an unprecedented level of resilience through the most extensive and powerful security and observability product portfolio on the market."

Cisco will Power and Protect the AI Revolution

The adoption and impact of AI are outpacing that of any technology introduction we have ever seen.

Effective use of the right data at massive scale is critical to enable the meaningful benefits of AI and help organizations drive outcomes never before possible. To truly reap the benefits of AI, organizations need the infrastructure to power it, the data to develop it, a security platform to protect it, and an observability platform to monitor and manage it in real time. Cisco will be able to do all four together.

"Cisco and Splunk is a transformative combination that will allow customers to do things that weren't possible before," said Stephen Elliot, Group Vice President, I&O, Cloud Operations, and DevOps at IDC. "With the close, Cisco has created a unique set of solutions for networking, security, and operations executives in the market. When you add that to their channel and AI investments, customers should be considering the higher levels of business value that can now be unlocked."

"Accenture congratulates Cisco on the acquisition of Splunk," said Julie Sweet, Chair and CEO Accenture. "We have enjoyed long-term partnerships with both companies and look forward to the opportunities this collaboration presents to our clients in the future.

Better Together: How Cisco and Splunk will Benefit Customers, Partners and Developers

The combination of Cisco and Splunk will provide customers with:

Better Security. A highly comprehensive security solution for threat prevention, detection, investigation, and response for organizations of any size, utilizing cloud, network, and endpoint traffic for unparalleled visibility.

Better Observability. A highly comprehensive full-stack observability solution for delivering amazing digital experiences across a multi-cloud hybrid environment.

Better Networking. A leading secure networking solution delivered on intelligent, resilient, and continually optimized network infrastructure.

Better AI. Cisco's networking portfolio combined with enhanced security, full-stack observability, and a comprehensive data platform  empowers customers to securely harness the power of AI throughout their organizations and applications.

Better Economics. Cisco and Splunk's platform approach will help our customers consolidate numerous point products delivering better business outcomes and reducing costs.

Cisco and Splunk also bring together global developer and partner communities with extensive experience extending security, observability, and data platform capabilities with pre-packaged applications and solutions for customers. Our collective partner ecosystem can create new profitable revenue streams through high-value services and by deploying innovative new applications and AI-powered solutions.

Ticketbud, today announced the launch of its Reserved Seating Ticketing, opening up to a wider range of event organizers wanting to switch to the ticketing provider emerging as a new industry favorite.

Reserved Seating by Ticketbud includes venue mapping and custom seating charts, with interactive selection allowing ticket buyers to choose their preferred seats with ease. This feature elevates the attendee experience and gives organizers flexibility to set custom pricing for various seating areas, maximizing revenue potential.

Eve Mason, of Velocity Dance Competition, who utilizes Ticketbud Reserve Seating for their year end Gala in Las Vegas said; "Having tried other ticketing services, I was seeking a more tailored experience. Ticketbud surpassed my expectations by offering customized ticketing sales, prompt assistance from a representative, and on-site support for our event. They truly went the extra mile to ensure our event was a success."

Ticketbud is rapidly gaining popularity with more event organizers wanting to move away from ever restrictive providers and their high ticketing fees. Ticketbud CEO, Kayhan Ahmadi explains, "It's not just the venue mapping and reserve seating, but the granular features that our event organizers love. The ability to pick your own seats at a gala table, or book out a whole table at a discounted rate. Our goal at Ticketbud is to continually innovate and provide solutions valuable to event organizers. We are committed to making advanced ticketing solutions accessible".

Reserved Seating is now available to all Ticketbud users. Whether it's a gala dinner, theater, stadium, or more custom seating requirements, Ticketbud can now better support these events.

Ticketbud is offering complimentary customized mapping and setup to the first 50 event organizers who request reserved seating.

Veteran SaaS marketing executive tapped to drive global marketing strategy and expansion

parcelLab, the premier global retail, e-commerce, and post-purchase customer experience platform, today announced the appointment of Noel Hamill as Global Chief Marketing Officer. Hamill will define and execute parcelLab’s global go-to-market strategy and vision, overseeing all marketing functions and helping to transform the customer journey to fuel the company’s next stage of business growth. 

Tobias Buxhoidt, Founder and CEO of parcelLab said: “Noel is a proven industry leader with an unmatched track record driving significant and sustained global growth through creative, data-driven marketing programs. His proven experience will help us expand our market share, elevate our global brand and usher in a new era of customer success as we continue to bring global brands closer to their customers.”

Hamill brings more than 20 years of experience in leadership roles for dynamic, private equity-backed SaaS companies. He most recently served as Global Chief Marketing Officer at PG Forsta, a SaaS technology platform providing technology, data, and expertise for research, healthcare, and customer experience measurement. Hamill was previously CMO of Ladbrokes Coral, where he was responsible for brand development and strategy, voice of the customer, public relations, social media and events.

"parcelLab is a high-growth company that is committed to driving innovation, customer satisfaction and share of wallet for global brands, and I’m thrilled to work with this amazing team at such an exciting stage in its growth journey,” said Hamill. “I look forward to helping parcelLab expand our market opportunities and accelerate customer adoption of our solutions around the world as we continue to revolutionize the post-purchase experience.”

Equifax® has joined forces with VTEX, the composable and complete commerce platform for premier B2C and B2B brands, to help fortify fraud prevention capabilities for merchants across the globe. This strategic partnership, which started in 2023, combines the fraud detection and prevention expertise from Equifax with the robust VTEX commerce platform, empowering enterprise customers to better secure their businesses while delivering unmatched customer experiences.

The collaboration enables customers on the VTEX platform to seamlessly integrate with the Equifax Kount Payment Fraud solution, an advanced anti-fraud solution that is used by more than 20,000 businesses operating in over 40 countries around the world to better engage with their customers while combating fraud. The integration is designed to offer real-time fraud protection during payment events, helping to safeguard transactions without disrupting the checkout flow. This includes:

• Scalable Artificial Intelligence-based decisioning and flexible business policies tailored to the needs of customers, financial institutions, and other businesses that conduct digital customer interactions.
• Access to an industry-leading global network that delivers a proprietary set of Equifax digital and physical identity data attributes that is bolstered by more than 60 billion annual transactions. 
• Robust reporting and analytics capabilities that deliver actionable insights for businesses of any size.

VTEX, one of the world's most recognized digital commerce platforms trusted by 2,600 customers across 43 countries, recognizes the value of equipping its merchants with sophisticated anti-fraud tools. "As enterprise businesses navigate the evolving commerce arena, heightened cybersecurity is undeniable. It's not just a shield against potential threats; it's the bedrock of sustainable success," said Santiago Naranjo, CRO at VTEX. "Our partnership with Equifax showcases our unwavering commitment to cybersecurity, bolstered by a focus on enhancing trust in every transaction. Our partnership isn't just about protection; it's about continued prosperity of customers worldwide."

The partnership aligns with the rising demand for robust fraud prevention measures globally in the e-commerce landscape. Worldwide e-commerce fraud is increasing, with enterprise losses from online payment fraud expected to exceed $362 billion between 2023 to 2028. With the rise of e-commerce orders, enterprises are increasingly vulnerable to various forms of fraud, including card testing, phishing, identity theft, and more. The collaboration between Equifax and VTEX addresses this challenge head-on, providing customers with advanced tools to combat fraud and help protect their revenue.

"While merchants can benefit from the rapid adoption of e-commerce to achieve significant revenue growth, they're also faced with increased rates of digital fraud and chargebacks," stated Adam Gunther, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the Digital Solutions team at Equifax. "The strategic partnership we've forged with VTEX exemplifies our commitment to enabling merchants globally with advanced technology to efficiently secure online transactions, protect and recover revenue, deliver great customer experiences, and focus on their core business rather than fraud."

The Equifax commitment to empowering businesses with industry-leading Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning technology, real-time fraud protection, and customizable solutions is at the core of this partnership. As merchants face the evolving landscape of fraud, the Equifax and VTEX partnership offers a proactive approach to minimizing false positives, improving fraud capture rates, and ensuring secure payment experiences.

"When faced with a fraud issue, time is of the essence, and dedicating weeks to development is simply not feasible," said Cody Stapleton, Co-CEO & Chief Commercial Officer, Jeffers Pet. "The seamless integration of the Kount Payment Fraud Solution within the VTEX platform proved to be remarkably efficient, swiftly addressing a cybersecurity gap that we were acutely aware of. We were operational within just one hour."

30-year Customer Experience and Customer Service Technology Veteran to Lead Market Intelligence and Evangelism for Five9

Five9, provider of the Intelligent CX Platform, today announced the appointment of Steve Blood as Vice President of Market Intelligence and Evangelism at Five9. Based in Europe, Blood will focus on shaping and elevating Five9’s positioning as it expands its global leadership in customer experience. 

“As one of the most prominent industry analysts in CX, Steve’s addition to the Five9 team underscores our role as an innovator,” said Five9 CMO Niki Hall. “His profound understanding of market demands will help amplify Five9’s thought leadership and his invaluable contributions will undoubtedly bolster our mission to deliver unparalleled CX solutions across all scales and sectors. We are beyond thrilled to welcome Steve and look forward to achieving remarkable milestones together."

Blood was most recently a Vice President and Analyst in Gartner’s Customer Service and Support team, part of the Sales & Customer Service practice. His research primarily focused on customer service and support technologies, with a specific expertise in market insights, contact center applications, digital customer service and customer service analytics. During his tenure at Gartner, Steve served as an advisor of customer service technology to end users and buyers of mid, large, and enterprise organizations across multiple continents. He authored industry-defining research, including most recently the Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Contact Center as a Service, Predicts 2024: Customer Service and Support Strategy and Leadership, and Market Guide for Digital Customer Service and Support.

“Five9 has achieved strong brand recognition and demonstrability in a market that was dominated by legacy customer experience and service technology,” said Blood. “I’ve been watching this market for decades and have always been impressed by how Five9 has grown organically to one of the largest CCaaS players today. I believe in the power of the collective – and Five9 has always embraced collaboration as a core strength, which aligns firmly with my beliefs. The opportunity is immense, and I am excited to be a part of Five9’s next chapter of growth.”

Prior to Gartner, Blood worked in product marketing at Rockwell Electronic Commerce, where he was responsible for marketing its next generation contact center portfolio in EMEA. Before that, he spent 10 years in the U.K. telecommunications industry in product management, sales and technical support roles for BT, Mercury Communications and NTL.