Raydiant Acquires AI Software Provider Sightcorp to Offer First End-to-End Experience Management Platform of its Kind for Retailers, Restaurants, and More
SAN FRANCISCO and AMSTERDAM, Jan. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — Raydiant, the leading in-location experience management platform, today announced it has acquired Sightcorp, a spinoff company from the University of Amsterdam that provides state-of-the-art, proprietary AI-powered audience intelligence for digital signage, digital out-of-home (DOOH) media, and in-store analytics. Raydiant and Sightcorp will jointly enable brands to create personalized on-screen, in-location experiences that generate anonymous audience and performance analytics to help them increase audience engagement, deliver valuable content, enhance messaging, and more.
“To survive and thrive in the future of brick and mortar, brands must deliver a seamless in-location customer experience that’s convenient, digital, and personalized; yet many are held back by the complexities and high price point of achieving these goals,” said Raydiant Chief Executive Officer, Bobby Marhamat. “We’ve built Raydiant from the ground up to help solve these pain points and are thrilled to add Sightcorp’s unmatched technology into our product offerings to more deeply serve the evolving needs of brands, customers, and employees worldwide.”
Raydiant’s 2021 “State of Consumer Behavior report” found that 60% of consumers have stopped doing business with a brand over one bad in-location experience, and Think by Google cites that people are 40% more likely to spend more than planned when they identify the shopping experience to be highly personalized. AI and digital signage solutions play key roles in delivering that personalization. Together, Raydiant and Sightcorp will provide dynamic, optimized content on screens powered by real-time audience and performance data insights. Retailers and media network owners will gain the opportunity to sell advertising space at a premium accompanied by ad performance metrics, targeting capabilities, and more.
Sightcorp’s proprietary technology allows media owners to provide advertisers and media buyers with meaningful audience insights and data visualizations based on live analysis captured anonymously on-camera, including age, gender, opportunity to see (OTS), impression and viewer counts, and attention and dwell times. To ensure privacy, the Sightcorp DeepSight Toolkit blurs all faces by default and is built to process all data offline and locally. Sightcorp cites the highest accuracy rate compared to its competitors and is the only player in the market applying 100% of the latest deep learning research in its audience analytics products.
Joyce Caradonna, previously CEO of Sightcorp and now Raydiant’s Managing Director EMEA, says, “This acquisition hits all of the synergy markers for us and will allow us to grow faster. We are very excited to continue investing big in research and development to create smart and innovative solutions that owners of on-premise media networks, agencies, and advertisers can use to seamlessly deliver compelling and valuable content to their target audiences.”
Sightcorp lists key players such as Intel and Simply NUC among their many partners. Raydiant serves more than 3,500 customers in 63 countries, including top brands such as First Bank, Dickey’s BBQ, Harvard University, The Salvation Army, Red Bull, Chick-Fil-A, and Thomson Reuters. Additionally, Raydiant works with the U.S. gourmet burger chain Wahlburgers, owned by Raydiant investor Mark Wahlberg and family.
Jonny Smith, CEO of Simply NUC Ltd, says, “We have a great partnership with Sightcorp, and we’re excited about this acquisition as Sightcorp’s innovative technology will help bring incremental value to Raydient’s clients in an array of industries by enabling real-time end-to-end intelligence from the cloud to the edge.”
Raydiant is actively hiring in various cities around the U.S., such as San Francisco, as well as internationally to accompany Sightcorp’s new offices. The company plans to expand its global headcount by 300% in 2022. Sightcorp’s European team has a goal to grow from 20 team members to 100 in 2022, with plans to open offices in Lithuania and London.
About Raydiant
Raydiant is the in-location experience management platform of choice for the world’s largest brands in retail, e-commerce, restaurants, and more. The platform empowers organizations to create personalized and meaningful end-to-end content experiences that help foster higher engagement from consumers and employee staff, which in-turn increases revenue for clients. Raydiant’s plug-and-play, cloud-based solution empowers customers to create, manage, and scale on-screen experiences across 1 or 100,000 locations, saving them time, resources, and logistical headache.
The company works with more than 3,500 brands including First Bank, Dickey’s BBQ, Harvard University, The Salvation Army, Red Bull, Chick-Fil-A, Thomson Reuters, as well as the U.S. gourmet burger chain Wahlburgers, owned by Raydiant investor Mark Wahlberg and family. Raydiant acquired Hoopla in 2021 to enable people-first workplaces to broadcast performance updates, recognize wins and share successes to unify communications across their hybrid or remote workplaces. The additional acquisition of Sightcorp in 2021 enables customers to receive anonymous in-store screen engagement analytics on dwell times, viewers, and impressions to help brands increase sales and deliver optimized content while maintaining consumer privacy. Founded in April 2017, Raydiant is headquartered in San Francisco, California and backed by 8VC, Atomic Ventures, Lerer Hippeau, Mark Wahlberg Investments, Bloomberg Beta, Gaingels, Illuminate Ventures, Transmedia Capital, and Ron Conway. To learn more, visit www.raydiant.com.
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SOURCE Raydiant, Inc.
