Funding co-led by Battery Ventures and PayPal Ventures with participation from Nationwide Ventures

Mine, a pioneering company disrupting the data privacy market, announced today that it has raised $30 million in Series B funding, co-led by Battery Ventures and PayPal Ventures, with significant investments from Nationwide Ventures and with the participation of all existing investors including Saban Ventures, Gradient Ventures (Google's AI), MassMutual Ventures and Headline Ventures. This substantial investment will propel Mine's mission to redefine data privacy and governance management for companies globally, enabling them to gain better control over their data and simplify regulatory compliance processes to get peace of mind.

With this investment, the company will scale its B2B enterprise-grade product, MineOS. MineOS distinguishes itself with its intuitive, no-code experience, seamlessly integrated with advanced AI technology. This integration not only sets a new industry benchmark in automation and accuracy but also revolutionizes the data discovery process, making it more accessible and efficient for businesses of all sizes to automatically discern the apps and infrastructure they employ, identify personal data within these systems, and grant individuals control over their data usage. Mine has seen remarkable customer growth across diverse segments and industries, reflecting the universal demand for robust data privacy and governance solutions. This surge underscores the versatility and effectiveness of MineOS, with rapid adoption observed among businesses ranging from burgeoning startups to well-established enterprises.

"Unlike other solutions that merely report data findings, MineOS enables us to automate assessments and fulfill regulatory obligations, transforming our approach to data privacy and governance," said Jutta Williams, Head of Privacy & Assurance at Reddit. "MineOS stands out in the data governance market by not only providing accurate insights but also empowering effective management of our data governance operations."

Rooted in its B2C origins, Mine prioritizes the customer experience, including a streamlined and continuous data discovery, inventory and classification system, unveiling near total coverage of any type of data, structured or unstructured, cloud or on-premise utilized by the company, complemented by the most comprehensive cloud scan to identify all assets. This evolution encompasses AI Risk Assessments, Shadow IT Management, Compliance, and Privacy requirements such as RoPA and DSR Handling, in addition to other Security measures. The ultimate objective for MineOS is to emerge as the singular source of truth for Data Lifecycle Management. Mine currently serves over 2,000 customers through its unique free tier offering and over 150 mid-size and enterprise customers including Reddit, HelloFresh SE, FIFA, and Data.ai. Their customers are based across North America, Europe, Israel, Canada and more. This diverse customer base is a testament to our platform's versatility and effectiveness.

"In the ever-evolving landscape of regulations and groundbreaking initiatives like AI, organizations now demand comprehensive visibility for effective data governance, and our solutions have never been more essential for enterprises of all sizes," expressed Gal Ringel, co-founder and CEO of Mine. "We've engineered a completely differentiated customer experience that has proven itself in the marketplace. Our pragmatic approach, coupled with an unwavering emphasis on ease of use, has deeply resonated with our users. This funding positions us to deliver an even more seamless and differentiated experience, ushering in a more efficient and streamlined approach to addressing data privacy concerns in the B2B market. This further solidifies our commitment to making the digital world safer and more transparent."

Mine tackles crucial issues in data privacy and governance, specifically navigating complex data regulations and the escalating demand for transparency. Acknowledging the challenges faced by industries in data inventory discovery and classification, Mine seeks to ease customer frustrations by prioritizing a more efficient and seamless process through an automated data privacy program. This shift aims to address the drawbacks of lengthy, inefficient processes and high costs, with the expected return on investment often realized after a 12-month period.

Recognizing the impending surge in state-level data regulations and the ongoing data explosion from massive data generation, collection, and management, Mine is poised to lead the market in the upcoming years of heightened data privacy focus in the US, projected for 2024 and 2025. As the privacy landscape continues to evolve, Mine is actively developing solutions for emerging AI regulations, including AI Governance and Risk Assessment functionality.

"We have been steadfast supporters of Mine from the very beginning, and we are thrilled to be part of this pivotal moment in the evolution of data privacy solutions for enterprises," said Scott Tobin, Senior Partner at Battery Ventures. "Our investment with Mine underscores our confidence in the team's innovative approach to empowering B2B enterprises in their privacy endeavors. We look forward to witnessing their continued growth and impact in the market."

"The rapid growth in popularity of Generative AI has underscored the critical importance of data privacy and makes this an exciting time to invest in Mine," said Alan Du, Partner at PayPal Ventures. "It has never been more important for organizations to address the privacy concerns of their customers, understand relevant and emerging laws, and teach their employees how to handle personal data responsibly. With Mine, enterprises of all sizes can compliantly harness the power of Generative AI and safeguard the privacy and data of their customers."

Powered by Tilia LLC, New Platform Enables Creators to Monetize Their Creations and Experiences

VRChat today released Paid Subscriptions, the first phase of the VRChat Creator Economy, powered by Tilia LLC. With Paid Subscriptions, users in VRChat can subscribe to their favorite creators, supporting them financially. This change is the first step in building the VRChat Creator Economy, which will enable VRChat’s over half a million individual creators to receive compensation for their creations. At launch, Paid Subscriptions will allow world creators to craft unique, custom experiences for their supporters.

Paid Subscriptions are the first step in establishing the VRChat Creator Economy. In the near future, the Creator Economy will expand with even more tools to allow VRChat’s vibrant creative community to receive compensation for building visionary worlds, crafting beautiful avatars, putting on weekly concerts, streaming to their thousands of followers, or engaging in countless other creative pursuits.

“We’re thrilled to finally launch the first piece of the VRChat Creator Economy, Paid Subscriptions! Our community is responsible for everything magical in VRChat, and the Creator Economy enables us all to financially support our incredible creators. Our hope is that with more support, our creators can bring even more magical content to the platform,” says Graham Gaylor, CEO and Co-founder of VRChat.

VRChat’s Creator Economy is powered by Tilia, an all-in-one payment platform designed from the ground up to help facilitate digital economies. By handling the behind-the-scenes nuts and bolts of payments and compliance, Tilia has enabled VRChat to build out a system for its users that can grow over time.

“Tilia was built to support the unique and complex requirements for creator-based economies,” says Brad Oberwager, CEO, Tilia LLC. “We are proud to partner with such a recognized innovator like VRChat as they seek to further encourage, empower and enable their creators.”

Paid Subscriptions work alongside VRChat’s custom scripting language, Udon, to enable creators to craft unique experiences for their supporters. Likewise, Paid Subscriptions will also work with many of VRChat’s other systems, enabling pre-existing communities in VRChat to monetize with an extremely low level of friction. On top of that, new discovery tools combined with VRChat’s upcoming launch on Android and Pico 4 will introduce opportunities for creators to find plenty of new supporters.

“What we’re launching today is just the first phase of the VRChat Creator Economy. VRChat isn’t like other social platforms – the sort of communities that exist here are unique, and we want to do our best to support all of them. Over time, we plan to roll out and support each applicable use case of the Creator Economy. We want all creators in VRChat – no matter what they’re making – to be able to thrive on our platform,” says Gaylor.

Basis Integration with P-Max Empowers Marketers to Measure Its Effectiveness Alongside Other Ad Channels; Basis Gathers Campaign Intelligence for Programmatic, Direct, Search and Social

Basis Technologies, a global provider of programmatic advertising and media automation solutions, today announced a first-to-market integration enabling marketers to measure Google Ads Performance Max (P-Max) campaigns from a third-party demand-side platform (DSP). The Basis media automation platform now accesses real-time ad delivery data from P-Max, providing a streamlined ad experience through an integration with Google Ads. Basis is unifying digital media management by providing holistic campaign planning and performance insights for programmatic, direct, search and social ad channels.

P-Max is increasing in adoption and is one walled garden platform among the many that an advertiser may be using for display, search and social ads simultaneously. Each of these platforms have their own unique features and interfaces, which increases the complexity for a media team to manage. In addition, an advertiser, on the same campaign, may be buying media through its DSP. Tracking the effectiveness of campaigns on different channels is essential for evaluating ad spend allocation. Basis’ comprehensive third-party platform integrations enable marketers to conveniently manage, track and analyze campaign performance without the need to switch between platforms. It becomes easier for marketers to maximize budgets when they are optimizing omnichannel campaigns using data gathered through Basis.

“AI is driving value in advertising, and marketers are increasingly looking to bring more of this element from Google to their media mix. Basis Technologies is meeting the needs of agencies and brands by offering the only technology that empowers media professionals to oversee the delivery of Performance Max campaigns alongside other popular advertising solutions,” said Tyler Kelly, president, Basis Technologies. “Our latest integration drives forward Basis’ vision to provide a comprehensive, cross-channel campaign performance measurement solution that consolidates the most important elements and tools.”

Basis ingests ad delivery metrics from major ad servers, social and search vendors, and its integrated demand-side platform (DSP). Its delivery data integrations from third-party ad products already include Google Search, Microsoft (Bing, LinkedIn), Meta (Facebook, Instagram), TikTok and Snapchat. These enable media professionals to simplify the process of cross-channel campaign planning, performance tracking, and pacing. They significantly reduce the time needed to check on the health of campaigns in flight, make adjustments, and assemble and unify reports.

Benefits of Basis’ integrated data feed from Google Ads P-Max includes:

• Speed: removes steps and saves time from having to log back and forth into Basis and Google Ads to track campaign performance and pacing adjustments.
• Control: empowers media buyers to pace and optimize campaigns, as well as analyze cross-channel campaign performance based on a holistic view.
• Intelligence: eliminates data silos and serves as a “single source of truth;” provides complete and unified view of cross-channel campaign performance.

No other DSPs have integrations with third party ad sources such as P-Max that allow automated standardization of reports. Basis users don’t have to log into third-party systems, locate campaign data, download spreadsheet reports with dozens of line items, and clean up reports to align them with the preferred arrangement of data. By using Basis to gain insights on campaigns running on P-Max and other ad platforms, marketers can see cross-channel performance data in real-time.

Basis encompasses comprehensive advertising capabilities for programmatic, vendor-direct, search and social. The platform’s nucleus is a top-rated omnichannel DSP complete with programmatic guaranteed and private marketplace deals.

Informatica, an enterprise cloud data management leader, has continued its momentum to enhance and elevate a growing network of strategic partnerships with the launch of new, enhanced Databricks-validated Unity Catalog integrations. Informatica’s no-code data ingestion and transformation pipelines run natively on Databricks for use with Databricks and Databricks Unity Catalog. The integration gives joint customers a best-in-class solution for onboarding data from 300+ data sources and rapidly preparing data for consumption with an extensive library of out-of-the-box, no-code, proven, repeatable data transformation capabilities.

“We are pleased to see our newly enhanced data pipelines for Databricks and Databricks Unity Catalog achieve Unity Catalog Certification,” said Rik Tamm-Daniels, Group Vice President of Strategic Ecosystems and Technology at Informatica. “We have many customers already using our data pipelines for Databricks today and with the new automated personal staging enhancements and certification, customers have a stellar solution for integrating all of their critical data into Databricks and turning it into ready-to-use AI-powered data for their mission-critical analytics and AI workloads.”

Unity Catalog Validated IDMC Capabilities

Informatica now offers IDMC customers the following Databricks Unity Catalog-validated capabilities:

• Cloud Data Integration (CDI) Ingest – CDI is now validated with Unity Catalog, enabling customers to directly ingest data from more than 300 data source types into Databricks.
• Automated personal staging location (PSL) Management - CDI now automatically manages Databricks personal staging locations for customers, providing a dedicated storage location for temporary data pipeline data. Customer benefits of automated PSL management include data separation (keeping primary data separate from temporary data), higher performance, expanded data versioning capacity and cost savings.
• Cloud Data Integration Transformation - Unity Catalog is now fully supported for ingest transformations running natively in Databricks via Databricks SQL. Customers benefit from highly secure data integration and transformation data pipelines running natively in the Databricks cluster.
• Informatica CDI-Free - Unity Catalog is now fully supported by the no-cost edition of CDI, providing customers with no-cost ingestion from 40 popular data sources and enabling data transformation for up to 20M rows or ten compute hours per month.

Databricks Modernization Program

Informatica’s PowerCenter Modernization to Databricks program provides customers with self-service capabilities to modernize their existing data estate. The program can provide customers with significant cost savings by automatically migrating more than 90% of PowerCenter workloads to the cloud. The program automatically converts legacy data pipelines to cloud-native data pipelines running natively on Databricks via Databricks SQL. The new pipelines benefit from the new personal staging location enhanced Cloud Data Integration service.

“We are excited about the ongoing collaboration and integration with Informatica,” said Roger Murff, VP of Technology Partners at Databricks. “The new Informatica integration with Databricks Unity Catalog and Informatica’s PC Modernization to Databricks Program makes it even easier for organizations to adopt the Databricks Data Intelligence Platform as the foundation for their data, analytics and AI investments.”

Informatica is one of the top three fastest-growing data and AI products in the Databricks ecosystem with 174% year-over-year growth, according to Databricks’ 2023 State of Date + AI report.

New chat moderation solution combines speed and precision of automation with invaluable nuanced human insights.

Sendbird, the industry-leading communications API platform for web and mobile apps, today announced new, industry-leading moderation capabilities. This timely solution, essential for online communities demanding robust measures against abuse, simplifies community guideline enforcement while ensuring a positive user experience.

With Sendbird's innovative moderation suite, automation meets human intuition to deliver top-notch community safety. Customers already use Sendbird Advanced Moderation in production across industries like marketplaces, media and entertainment, and social communities for dating and more.

A Closer Look at Sendbird Moderation

Sendbird's hybrid moderation system marks a significant leap forward. This innovative approach combines the precision of advanced automated tools with the nuanced understanding of human moderators, setting a new benchmark in community safety.

At the heart of the moderation solution is the Sendbird Rule Engine, an intelligent scanner of user interactions—detecting and decisively managing inappropriate content from texts to multimedia. It is designed to adapt. Moderators can customize rules to reflect the community's unique standards and cultural values. The result is a consistent, fair, and safe environment across the social platform.

When automation meets ambiguity, the Moderation Review Queue steps in, allowing for nuanced decisions that honor moderators managing the complexity of human communication. The Moderation Review Queue is a critical checkpoint to ensure all content aligns with the platform's community standards.

The Live moderation dashboard also lets moderators handle traffic in real time with a direct window into chat groups and channels.

Sendbird doesn't just moderate; it keeps records. The Sendbird Moderation Logs retain every action detail, providing a transparent trail of moderation activities for audits and continuous rule improvements.

"Global online communities with low control over user-generated content face significant risks. Language and intent matter," said Sendbird CEO and Co-founder John S. Kim. "Our commitment at Sendbird is to foster safer, more engaging online communities where interactions are secure and enriching. By blending automated efficiency with human insight, our Hybrid Moderation system offers an unparalleled solution to the dynamic challenges of moderating online communities."

Sendbird has already deployed Advanced Moderation to several customers, resulting in stellar outcomes.

"At Kakao Entertainment, ensuring a safe and vibrant community is our top priority. Sendbird's moderation rule engine has been a game-changer for us, providing the flexibility and efficiency to tailor moderation rules to our unique needs," said Pina Jang, Project Manager at Kakao Entertainment. "We're excited to create an even safer and more engaging space where our users can confidently connect and communicate."

Other customers testing Advanced Moderation find it more comprehensive and user-friendly than other solutions. Additionally, they've been impressed with how easy it was to activate the capabilities directly from the dashboard.

Small businesses today have a lot of competition when it comes to getting and keeping the attention of their customers. Entrepreneurs are always looking for ways to stand out and according to a recent survey, 55% of consumers say email is their preferred digital channel for business communication.

To help small business owners enhance their email marketing efforts, GoDaddy, the company that helps entrepreneurs thrive, launched Email Automation for Websites + Marketing. 

This powerful new tool allows businesses to customize, schedule and trigger email communication automatically using intuitive templates, freeing up time to allow entrepreneurs to focus on growing their business. 

A few of these email templates include: 

• Welcome emails for email subscribers, members, and new customers.  
• Commerce emails for order confirmations, order shipments and order cancellations.
• Appointment booking confirmations and appointment reminders.
• Abandoned cart emails to prompt customers to complete their check out. 

With each template completely customizable, entrepreneurs can ensure their brand's color scheme, imagery and tone of voice are clearly reflected in all emails. Plus, entrepreneurs can personalize these automated emails to include the recipient's name, phone, email, and other personal details, so their customers feel seen and valued.  

"Sending the right message at the right time to the right audience is key to standing out in your customers inbox," said Eric Johnson, senior product manager for GoDaddy. "GoDaddy's Email Automation streamlines the customer communication process, giving small businesses a more professional touch and adding value to their customers experience."  

To start using Email Automation, existing Websites + Marketing customers can login to their GoDaddy account, locate the "Connections" option in the dashboard and then click "Automations".

B2B Veteran Brings Decades of Experience Driving Growth and Innovation Across Hybrid Cloud and Software Markets

Pure Storage^®, the IT pioneer that delivers the world's most advanced data storage technology and services, today announced the appointment of Lynn Lucas as its Chief Marketing Officer (CMO). She will report directly to Pure Storage Chief Operating Officer Matt Burr.

Lucas comes to Pure Storage as an award-winning and results-driven marketeer who has led marketing organizations for both high growth SaaS companies, like Cohesity, as well as global brands such as Cisco and Veritas. Lucas brings more than 25 years of experience driving growth and innovation in B2B marketing and was most recently awarded one of the Fearless 50 customer-led marketers of 2023. In this role, she will work closely with the company's executive leadership team to drive a global marketing strategy for the next phase of its growth trajectory as a platform company, increasingly driven by a cloud operating model and accelerated demand for its subscription services.

"Drawing from her years of experience helping shape successful companies, Lynn's marketing prowess will only further our highly differentiated leadership position and the value we provide to our customers," said Matt Burr, Chief Operating Officer, Pure Storage.

"I am thrilled to take Pure Storage's industry leading platform to market, and showcase how we help organizations modernize their hybrid cloud data storage and management with simplicity, scalability, and sustainability that only Pure can uniquely deliver," said Lucas. "As businesses continue to modernize their storage, I will be laser focused on advancing a strong go-to-market organization that elevates the Pure Storage brand and drives long-term growth."

Lucas will be based in the Santa Clara, California headquarters.

The strategic acquisition further expands AppsFlyer’s capabilities and platform to accelerate data-driven decision-making that fuels efficient business growth

AppsFlyer, the global leader in marketing measurement, attribution, and data analytics, today announced its acquisition of oolo, a leading AI-powered user acquisition and monetization decision-making platform. The acquisition strengthens AppsFlyer's portfolio of products and services as the company introduces holistic solutions crafted for the interconnected needs of modern marketing, growth and monetization teams, and will see oolo operate as “oolo by AppsFlyer.”

AppsFlyer’s acquisition of oolo comes as a part of the company’s continuing mission to empower brands with the most comprehensive decision-making platform in the constantly evolving digital ecosystem. As marketing, growth and monetization teams expand their responsibilities and strategies for acquiring, engaging, and monetizing customers, the need for informed decisions made in real-time, at scale, significantly increases. Responding to these challenges, oolo harnesses AI’s full capabilities to enhance growth strategies – from full-funnel acquisition, monetization, and retention – providing immediate actionable insights and time-sensitive alerts to instantly optimize return on ad spend (ROAS), media revenue, and retention. By continuously monitoring entire datasets, the crucial insights and predictions delivered by oolo’s powerful AI would otherwise remain hidden or require weeks of work by teams of data analysts to uncover.

Now part of AppsFlyer, oolo will also be integrated into AppsFlyer’s growing Privacy Cloud Marketplace, pioneering how AI products can address the primary issue of signal loss and utilize the data within customers' Data Clean Rooms to deliver additional value through data collaboration with a privacy-by-design approach.

“Adapting to the ever-changing digital ecosystem requires innovative solutions that can offer privacy-centric, actionable insights for optimal decision-making,” said Oren Kaniel, CEO and co-Founder at AppsFlyer. “oolo’s unique technology, team and expertise will play a key role in our continual pursuit to build a holistic platform that accommodates the shifting expectations, roles and challenges of modern marketing teams. The combination of oolo’s innovative technology with AppsFlyer’s industry leading measurement platform offers brands new opportunities to harness AI’s full capabilities to optimize their growth and monetization strategies. We believe the future of data-driven decisions is in smart AI rather than the static tools which are common today, and oolo’s cutting-edge AI technology enables us to better serve the increasing demands of our customers and meet their evolving needs.”

oolo delivers a constantly updated alert system that makes it easy to detect anomalies, identify immediate growth opportunities, prevent and correct inefficiencies that help solve the daily optimization challenges growth marketers face. By using data from marketing campaigns to train itself to understand what's normal and what's not, oolo surfaces and prioritizes the most urgent, important and granular insights so marketing, growth and monetization teams are able to gain a competitive advantage and achieve better results with less effort.

AppsFlyer’s acquisition of oolo is the company’s second this year, following its recent acquisition of devtodev, a full-cycle data analytics solution for game and app developers. oolo and devtodev will be among the first applications within AppsFlyer’s recently launched Privacy Cloud Marketplace, and will enable all data, analytics and AI providers to build their products using AppsFlyer’s APIs and seamlessly integrate their services without moving or sharing user data with external parties.

“It’s an exciting time for us at oolo,” said Yuval Brener, CEO of oolo. “This acquisition is set to blaze a trail in the data analytics space as we join forces with AppsFlyer to provide state-of-the-art data monitoring technologies for brands around the world. With AppsFlyer’s proven track-record, large client base, and privacy-preserving architecture, our customers will benefit from an integrated approach to growth decision-making unlike anything seen before.”