Profitero, a leading global enterprise eCommerce SaaS analytics platform, today announced a new executive leadership team and raised $20 million to fuel its next stage of growth.
Bryan Wiener, a 25-year digital marketing and SaaS industry veteran, has joined as Chief Executive Officer. Sarah Hofstetter, an award-winning marketing executive and current member of the board of directors for Campbell Soup Company, has joined as President. Sandor Palfy, former CTO of LogMeIn, has joined as Chief Technology Officer. For the past three months, Wiener, Hofstetter and Palfy have been serving as special advisors to Profitero’s board, developing a growth strategy and product roadmap to benefit customers, employees and shareholders.
The $20 million Series B investment round was led by Scaleworks with participation from Conviction Capital. Scaleworks Venture Equity Fund was created to invest in high-potential SaaS businesses that could benefit from increased focus on strategy, go-to-market and team building.
“eCommerce was already on a major growth trajectory, but COVID-19 has sent it into hyperdrive by forcing consumers to adopt online ordering behaviors at a much faster rate,” said Lew Moorman, Co-Founder and General Partner at Scaleworks. “These major shifts in digital purchase behavior have created a large opportunity for Profitero as one of the few platforms capable of helping brands optimize their digital businesses across thousands of retailer sites and at global scale. With Bryan, Sarah and Sandor onboard, Profitero has the veteran leadership it needs to remain the leading global innovator in the market.”
“A decade ago, search and social media were the hot trends keeping CEOs and CMOs up at night; now it’s digital commerce. The pattern is the same: consumers are shifting behavior, and brands must follow suit or face irrelevance,” said Wiener, Profitero’s CEO. “The complexity and dynamic nature of eCommerce requires platforms like Profitero to ensure brands are putting the right product in the right place at the right time with the right level of promotion behind it.”
Profitero is the platform Adidas, L’Oreal, General Mills and more than 4,000 other brands use to accelerate their eCommerce sales. Brands that use Profitero are able to grow their Amazon sales 70 percent faster than category competitors, on average. Using Profitero’s proprietary technology and algorithms, brands can optimize their 4Ps (Product, Placement, Price and Promotions) across 8,000 retailer sites and 50 countries while also uncovering competitor behavior. Profitero’s technology also estimates daily sales for products sold on Amazon, allowing brands to measure market share growth and size category opportunities for future investment. The platform was first in the industry to integrate Amazon sales and share metrics and digital shelf analytics together so brands can more quickly pinpoint the factors driving their business.
“Profitero is our lifeline for navigating the volatile conditions created by COVID-19,” said Stacy Hanks, Director of eCommerce at The Master Lock Company. “We meet daily as an eCommerce team to assess the health of our business and to prioritize critical cross-functional actions needed to drive results. Profitero’s data is powering this process and allowing us to quickly adapt our supply chain, pricing and advertising strategies so we can maintain growth – and most importantly – keep meeting our customers’ needs during this critical time.”
“I’ve had the pleasure of working with Bryan, Sarah and Sandor over the last three months and their positive impact is already being felt across the organization,” said Noel Ruane, Profitero’s Chairman. “Their highly relevant domain expertise and leadership experience, combined with the significant capital commitment led by Scaleworks, is a perfect one-two punch to exploit the unrivalled capabilities and potential of the Profitero platform. This is a very important time for companies to be well-led and well-capitalized.”
“eCommerce has never been more important, yet many brands are overwhelmed by its complexity and dynamic pace of change. In fact, according to Profitero’s recent industry study, 71 percent of brand executives say their organizations are merely catching up or keeping pace with competitors in eCommerce, instead of leading them,” said Hofstetter, Profitero’s President. “My entire career has been defined by helping brands reduce the complexity of adapting to emerging digital trends: first it was social media and digital marketing, now it is digital commerce. I’m excited to help Profitero’s clients transform their businesses.”
“I have been very impressed with the scale, technology and machine learning capabilities Profitero has built for its customers, as well as the skill of its product engineering and data science teams,” said Palfy, Profitero’s Chief Technology Officer. “I love working with companies at Profitero’s stage of fast growth, and am excited to raise the bar for innovation in the eCommerce industry and build even more valuable products for our customers.”
About Profitero
Profitero is the platform Adidas, L’Oreal, General Mills and 4,000 other brands use to accelerate their eCommerce sales. In fact, brands that use Profitero are able to grow their Amazon sales 70 percent faster than category competitors, on average. Using Profitero’s proprietary technology and algorithms, brands can optimize their 4Ps (Product, Placement, Price and Promotions) across 8,000 retailer sites and 50 countries while also uncovering what competitors are doing to win online. Profitero’s technology also estimates daily sales for products sold on Amazon, allowing brands to measure market share growth and size category opportunities for future investment. The platform was first in the industry to integrate Amazon sales and share metrics and digital shelf analytics together so brands can more quickly pinpoint the factors driving sales and share changes. For more, visit www.profitero.com
About Bryan Wiener, CEO, Profitero
Bryan is an entrepreneur and business-builder, who has spent the past 25 years driving growth amid chaotic markets undergoing rapid technological transformation. He is the former CEO and Board Director at Comscore, Inc., a global leader in cross-platform audience and advertising measurement. Prior to Comscore, Bryan co-founded and was co-CEO of search marketing optimization SaaS platform SearchIgnite, and digital marketing agency 360i, which was known for its innovative work with CPG, entertainment and retail clients, and was acquired by Dentsu in 2010. Bryan also previously served as the Chairman of Expion, a social content and analytics software SaaS company serving CPG customers from 2014 until the company was acquired in 2015. Bryan is a member of the board of directors of cars.com (NYSE: CARS) and serves on the advisory board for the Newhouse School of Communications at Syracuse University. Bryan holds an MBA from the Stern School of Business at New York University and a BA from Syracuse University.
About Sarah Hofstetter, President, Profitero
Sarah is a visionary leader with a proven track record of driving tremendous growth in multiple disruptive environments during the past 20+ years. She is the former Chairwoman and CEO of digital marketing agency, 360i, which under her leadership grew from 30 to 1,000 people and was recognized by Ad Age as a top 10 national advertising agency every year that she was CEO and President. Prior to joining 360i, she founded Kayak Communications, a consulting firm for startups. Sarah also spent almost 10 years at Net2Phone, one of the world's first providers of VoIP technology, in a series of senior leadership positions. Sarah is a member of the board of directors for Campbell Soup Company. She has been recognized by Ad Age’s "40 Under 40," and Adweek 50, and has been inducted into the AAF Hall of Achievement and Word of Mouth Marketing Hall of Fame. Sarah also has taken the stage at Cannes Lions Creativity Festival and Fortune Most Powerful Women Next Gen Summit, among others.
About Sandor Palfy, Chief Technology Officer, Profitero
Sandor is a transformational leader who has spent the past 20+ years scaling high-growth, global technology companies, and building products that are used and loved by millions of people every day. Prior to Profitero, Sandor spent 14 years at LogMeIn, helping the company grow from 40 to 3,500 people, go public and reach $1.2B in revenue. In his most recent role as CTO, Sandor drove the technology vision and development for the Identity and Remote Management portfolio (LastPass, LogMeIn Central, LogMeIn Pro, and GoToMyPC) and led the corporate IT and Security teams, navigating through many acquisitions and the merger with Citrix Online. Prior to LogMeIn, Sandor was a Research Scholar at Vanderbilt University's Bioengineering faculty, working on one of the first Adaptive Learning systems, which was later adopted by both MIT and Harvard. Sandor earned his master’s degree in Computer Science at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics and spent the early part of his career at Digital Equipment Corporation. Sandor is an active angel investor, startup mentor and Venture Partner at F-Prime Capital, focusing on enterprise technology and cybersecurity.
