IPO bound, Netcore Cloud takes majority stake in Unbxd Inc, invests close to $100 mn - one of India's largest strategic SaaS investments, to date

MUMBAI, India-Thursday 31 March 2022 [ AETOS Wire ]

Establishes Netcore Cloud as a one-stop marketing stack for digital eCommerce brands and provides a strong foothold in the US & developed markets

Marks Netcore Cloud's fourth investment over the last three years, after Quinto.ai (Conversational commerce), Boxx.ai (Product recommendation), and Hansel.io (Product Experience) and is funded by its internal accruals

Unbxd Inc. was previously backed by marquee investors like Nirvana Ventures, Chiratae Ventures, Eight Roads, and Inventus Capital.

(BUSINESS WIRE) -- Netcore Cloud, a profitable SaaS company and global leader in customer communication, engagement, and retention, bets big on Personalization with its investment of close to $100 mn to acquire a majority stake in US-based, search-personalization company Unbxd Inc. It will also be infusing additional funding into Unbxd to propel the company's growth in developed markets.

Founded by Pavan Sondur and Prashant Kumar in 2012, Unbxd is a 120-member team and has built a best-in-class AI-powered Product Discovery suite. Its intelligent search solutions significantly improve retention and conversions for leading eCommerce retailers/B2C brands in the USA, UK, and Australia, including marquee brands like Mattress Firm, Express, Ashley Homestore, Home Shopping Network, Advance Auto Parts, The Children's Place, Mitre10, Kookai, and many others.

Netcore Cloud, has ranked a strong performer globally in email marketing by Forresterwave, commands 75% of India's & 50% of Asia's email traffic on its platform. With Unbxd's expertise in product discovery, the investment positions Netcore Cloud's as a leading Digital Experience Platform (DXP) globally. Leveraging Unbxd's AI-powered search expertise equips Netcore Cloud to deliver a real-time recommendation to its online eCommerce/app-first brand and retailer.

"The coming MarTech era will be defined by budget shifts from Adtech to MarTech as brands will focus more on unit economics and valuing existing customers. This will lead D2C/eCommerce brands to accelerate their spending towards delivering personalized customer experiences. Unbxd's AI/ML tech stack will empower our customers to track their shopper’s interactions with Search and implement site-wide Personalization, merchandising, along with shopper-focused recommendations. This will enable brands to optimize their entire customer journey, providing the best in class customer experience," said Kalpit Jain, Group CEO, Netcore Cloud.

"Netcore Cloud platform is growing rapidly at 40% YoY (with international markets growing 100% YoY ). We are positioned as the digital proxy in emerging markets. Added to that, this investment will enable us to get a strong foothold in the US and other developed markets as well. Furthermore, the combination of Unbxd and Netcore Cloud's capabilities will bolster our full-stack product offerings,” said Nishant Jain, Chief Strategy Officer and Head of M&A, Netcore Cloud.

He further added, “The SaaS market is very fragmented, and the era of SaaS consolidation is upon us. We intend to fast-track our growth exponentially with the Buy-Partner strategy. This is our fourth acquisition in quick succession, and we already have our eyes set on the next one.”

Pavan Sondur and Prashant, Co-founders at Unbxd, said, "Since our launch, we at Unbxd have been on a mission to solve the problem of discovery for digital commerce leveraging the power of AI. With our unique combination of personalization solutions and Netcore's robust full-stack marketing automation tech platform, it's a perfect partnership that can capture cross-selling opportunities and scale the business globally.

Netcore Cloud has confirmed that there will be no change in the company's management, as the founders and key management will continue to build and grow the company post this deal. Unbxd will operate as an independent entity.

About Netcore Cloud:

Netcore Cloud is a bootstrapped SaaS company that helps B2C brands and marketers create AI-powered new-age customer experiences at every touchpoint of a customer's journey. Netcore Cloud's full-stack marketing platform enables highly personalized digital experiences that are easily scalable and provide actionable analytics, real-time reporting, and quick to implement solutions across channels. Brands using Netcore Cloud can have a unified view of their customers and optimize their user experience.

Headquartered in Mumbai, India, with 11 offices across the USA, Singapore, Malaysia, Nigeria, Indonesia, UAE, UK, and Germany, Netcore Cloud serves 5000+ customers across the globe. It delivers 17+ billion emails and tracks 100+ billion marketing events every month. Netcore Cloud is a trusted partner across industries with some of the most respected brands like MaxLife Insurance, ICICI Bank, Standard Chartered, Flipkart, Myntra, Miss Amara, Airtel, Disney Hotstar, Canon, Puma, Tobi, EaseMyTrip, PizzaHut and McDonald's. For more information, visit https://netcorecloud.com/

About Unbxd:

Unbxd is an eCommerce product discovery platform to help online retailers provide a seamless shopping experience to customers. The company deploys self-learning AI/ML models and advanced algorithms to deliver personal recommendation and merchandising controls. Presently, the company empowers 3.5% of all US e-commerce on-site search queries spread over 150+ customers. The company has a wide presence in 40+ countries and provides intelligent site search to more than 1,200 eCommerce sites.

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Contacts

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Rajashree Arandhara | rajashree.arandhara@2020msl.com | +91 78990 60517

Reshma Nair | reshma.nair@2020.com | + 91 9901372965