Audigent Secures $6.7 Million Series A Financing Round Led by Raised In Space

Next-Generation First-Party Data Monetization Platform Will Aggressively Accelerate Sales, Marketing, and Product Innovation

Audigent, the “2.0” data management platform (DMP) and leading edge “data agency” announced it has completed a $6.7 million Series A round of financing. The funding will allow Audigent to continue its expansion as the premier first-party data platform for the entertainment, sports and lifestyle verticals. Raised In Space, a joint venture between Ithaca Holdings and Ripple’s Xpring, led the investment round with additional participation from existing and new investors including: Galaxy Digital, Broadscale Group, Warner Music Group, and SVK Crypto, along with a personal investment from Chairman of Alibaba Entertainment, Gao Xiaosong. The investment brings Audigent’s total funding to $14.5 million since the launch and will help the company aggressively expand its sales and marketing efforts; it will also continue to innovate its core next-gen data platform and unique, proprietary data products. Raised in Space’s President, Shara Senderoff, will join the board with Galaxy Digital’s Sam Englebardt.

The Series A financing builds on an exceptional year for Audigent which saw rapid revenue growth along with an impressive, growing roster of DMP and “data agency” clients.  Audigent’s first-party data partners and distinct focus on data privacy has become an industry stand out as the company ushers in a new era of clean, verified opt-in data for its partners, while providing an unparalleled data-driven media buying solution focused on transparency and performance for brands and media agencies. Audigent is the first all-in-one solution tackling the biggest challenge in entertainment – audience ownership growth and first-party data monetization. Audigent’s approach purges fraudulent IDs and duplicates through verification, provides auditability across multiple blockchain ledgers, and delivers actionable and ownable audience banks that increase conversion and eliminates the traditional behavior of “renting” audiences from siloed sources.

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“The music industry flushes roughly 50% of our multi-billion-dollar digital ad spend down the drain instantly upon campaign launch by spending marketing dollars targeting audiences riddled with bots and duplicates from outdated third-party data sets. We lack a true understanding of who encompasses our fanbases and until now, a solution to accurately find and target them. It’s simply irresponsible to continue in this manner,” said Zach Katz, CEO of Raised In Space.

“Reaching audiences with precision ROI will give unprecedented meaning to how we utilize data in-music and entertainment across the board. Audigent is making a critical change to the mindset of a marketer, it’s no longer a routine media spend but now a strategic media investment. This is a game-changer,” said Shara Senderoff, President of Raised in Space.

“We were early backers of Audigent because their mission and platform were both virtuous and innovative,” said Andrew Shapiro of Broadscale Group, a leading investor in Audigent. “They have rejected personally identifiable information from the outset and have championed individual data privacy as a key part of their current and future vision for their products. This approach and focus on clean, opt-in data, not only performs well for brands and media agencies, but speaks directly to where the programmatic landscape is rapidly shifting and the kinds of trusted partners both clients and brands need.”

Audigent’s passive competitors utilize DMP segments that often contain a mix of unverified first, second and third-party data, and rely heavily on antiquated “look-a-like” modeling.  Audigent’s proprietary data platform automates the building of valuable audiences and deep, insightful segmentation across massive first-party data sets using only deterministic, 1-to-1 insights and translates them into actionable audiences for brands and media agencies to use as DMP segments (data only), SmartPMPs^TM (a first-of-a-kind data + inventory product) and/or a full data-driven managed service.

Key features and benefits of the Audigent platform include:

• Exclusive, premium first-party data from some of the biggest brands in entertainment, sports and lifestyle content
• Fully blockchain-verified, opt-in audiences that cut out fraud, bots, crawlers, duplicates and other non-human/non-actionable traffic
• First traditional data tech stack to incorporate blockchain to provide data partners with verification tools and data buyers (brands/media agencies) with data segment auditing tools
• Unique, custom audience segments delivered both off-the-shelf and as bespoke DMP segments
• Deep programmatic pipelines to the top demand side platforms and data marketplaces
• Full-service data strategy and programmatic trade desk team focused on audience driven optimization and media execution
• First-of-a-kind SmartPMPs^TM that combine first-party data and premium publisher inventory delivered as a single, easy-to-use deal ID

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Led by veteran adtech and entertainment entrepreneurs Drew Stein (Dashbid, The Station/Music Playground/Diner) and Brian Brater (Rawkus Records, Big Frame, UPROXX), Audigent is on a mission to make bold industry changes through its innovative platform and products. “First party audience data is the rocket fuel that drives programmatic campaign success. The excitement around clean, transparent, privacy safe data continues to dominate the programmatic advertising conversation,” said Audigent’s Chief Executive Officer, Drew Stein. “Having the financial resources and expertise of our Series A investors will not only help us to execute our vision and continue to move our products forward in a way that benefits our clients and partners – but also in a way that will move our entire industry forward toward championing data privacy for individuals.”

“The future of data is truly virtuous,” added Brian Brater, Executive Chairman. “Audigent has the ability to ensure that artists, athletes, and content creators can build and share value with their audiences as well as with brands. This has been an exciting, worthwhile journey for us that will only become more exciting with our Series A investors and their commitment to seeing the company grow exponentially.”

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