Visual IQ - Volition Capital

Adtech
GTM Technology

Acquired by Nielsen in 2017, Visual IQ is the leading cross-channel marketing intelligence software company.

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ABOUT

Founded in 2006, Visual IQ was launched to help customers gain insight into the relative performance of different marketing channels, campaigns, and creative displays. Based on its advanced analytics, the technology enables its clients to adjust advertising strategies to increase the ROI on marketing spend. Visual IQ’s products combine a user-friendly interface with advanced attribution and predictive modeling functionality that demonstrates where opportunities exist for improving marketing efficiencies.

BACKGROUND

According to an article published in Martech Series, co-founder Manu Mathew originally had the idea for VisualIQ back in the early 2000’s when digital was first taking off.

Manu recalls, “I was working on the Vonage account at a leading advertising agency. I was frustrated by my inability to use data to demonstrate how our campaigns impacted Vonage’s overall business goals to the Company’s then CEO, a former finance expert who wanted to know exactly where, how and why his money was being spent. This frustration drove me to create Visual IQ in 2006, and launch an attribution solution that would enable marketers to leverage their data to gain an accurate and holistic view of performance, better allocate their marketing dollars, and prove the impact of their investments.”

By 2012, Manu, and his co-founder and CTO, Anto Chittilappilly recognized the opportunity they had in front of them in building a sizable business in the MarTech space with the right investment in sales and marketing.

WHY WE INVESTED IN VISUALIQ

Marketers have long struggled to quantify ROI on marketing spend. As spend on digital marketing increases with each budget cycle, the customer journey becomes more complex with multiple touch points across sessions and sites, making it even harder to identify how activities contribute to a customer conversion.

“Marketers recognize the need for a more sophisticated attribution approach to make better marketing allocation decisions,” said Sean Cantwell, Managing Partner at Volition Capital. “Attribution offers the ability to understand how marketing channels interact with each other to drive customer conversion and provides the opportunity to optimize marketing spend across the sales cycle.”

The Volition team knew access to attribution technology had pushed adoption past a tipping point. “Built on the foundation of widespread web analytics adoption, we believed attribution was likely to become a standard within digital marketing departments in the mid-market and above over the next few years,” said Roger Hurwitz, Volition Managing Partner.

In 2012, Volition Capital invested in VisualIQ

Manu's Perspective

Visual IQ co-founder, Manu Matthew, on working with Voiltion Capital:

“Visual IQ was privileged to have Volition as a partner. Volition clearly understood our value proposition to CMOs and our vision to continue leading the industry with our marketing intelligence and attribution platform. The alignment from the start was fantastic and the support we received over the next few years was really that of a true business partner.

I appreciated the pragmatism and practical advice I received from Sean and Roger at Volition. They always put the needs of the business first, helping to ensure we were thinking ahead. Through their network I was able to round out my management team hiring our first CFO and CRO. As a CEO, I always appreciated the fact that they were always ready to take a call from me at moment’s notice to vet an idea, opportunity or challenge. I could not have asked for better business partners for Visual IQ as we grew to a global business.”

How We Partnered with VISUALIQ

Recruited a new CFO from our network to join the Company post-investment
Helped round out the management team by recruiting a VP of Sales and VP of Services
Assisted management in strategizing and pursuing sale to Nielsen