Simon Data Inc., a startup with a platform that combines the features of an analytics tool and marketing automation software, has secured $54 million in new funding.

The capital was raised through a Series D round that the startup announced today. Macquarie Capital was the lead investor. Multiple returning backers, among them Polaris, .406 Ventures and F-Prime, contributed as well.

Companies often store the information they collect about their customers in multiple systems. Simon Data’s platform can aggregate information from those systems into a single, centralized repository. Once a company’s customer data is in one place, marketers can more easily analyze it to find ways of increasing sales.

Simon Data’s platform includes built-in machine learning models for processing marketing records. The models can determine the likelihood that a website visitor will make a purchase, forecast customer churn and perform related tasks.

To help companies engage customers, Simon Data has built an email distribution engine into its platform. The engine can automatically send marketing emails to users at opportune moments, such as when a customer expresses interest in making a purchase. Simon Data’s platform also automates related tasks such as sending in-app promotions.

Today’s funding announcement comes a few weeks after the startup extended its platform by adding another built-in marketing tool. 

Called Connected Segmentation, the new tool eases the task of creating customer segments. Those are files that contain information about one specific subset of a company’s customers, such as frequent buyers or users who have signed up for a rewards program. Marketers use such files to create targeted promotions tailored for specific audiences.

Often, companies store the raw marketing information from which customer segments are created in cloud data platforms such as Snowflake. Turning the raw information into a segments requires moving it from Snowflake to a third-party marketing platform for processing. Then, companies must send the processing results back to Snowflake.

Simon Data says that its recently launched Connected Segmentation tool skips the round-trip. It runs directly on Snowflake and turns raw customer data into segments without moving it to external infrastructure. According to the company, its approach speeds up processing while reducing the need for marketers to request technical assistance from engineers.

“We’re seeing a fundamental shift in the CDP space — pitting packaged solutions that exist independently of enterprise cloud data warehouses against composable solutions that are purpose-built to unlock its potential,” said Data co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Jason Davis.

Simon Data will invest the proceeds from its latest funding round in feature development. As part of the initiative, it intends to build more tools like Connected Segments that can integrate with companies’ cloud data platforms. The startup will also spend a part of its newly raised capital on go-to-market initiatives. 

Image: Simon Data