Finnish Smart Metrics Company with Big Data, Big Plans, and now, Big Funds

If you have listened to Gary Vee’s keynote at Arctic15, you probably heard that the future marketing will heavily rely on voice technology. Device innovation is growing at a pace where to enjoy the online content, you won’t need a screen anymore. You’ll be talking to your device through voice-guided interfaces, which you probably already do with your Alexa or Google Home device. Big changes are coming in the ways data is being generated and used, and the question for many startups is – how do you adapt to the world where rapid technological advances and ever-changing consumer behaviour are reshaping the entire industries. Finnish Verto Analytics is staying on top of this is, and they’re back on ArcticStartup blog with good news.

Over the past two years, consumer-behaviour measurement platform Verto has successfully fine-tuned and proven the product fit in the U.S. and Europe. After successfully operating in the US and UK, with clients including Microsoft, Intel, Google, Netflix, CNN and Kargo, Verto has continued building its original single-source methodology through a new suite of research services. The company has three granted patents and an additional thirteen currently under consideration.

 “I am proud of the position we have achieved, the scale and scope of the syndicated research services we have built, and particularly proud of our new executive team who is led by Pat Brennan, as our President of the US business,” – Dr. Hannu Verkasalo, CEO & Founder of Verto Analytics

With the dynamics around media advertising, the demand for an independent and trustworthy 3rd party measurement data provider is growing. Consumer behaviour is shifting rapidly – and over the last ten years, people have changed more than they have changed over the last 50 years. What was back in the day just a TV, nowadays is cross-platform media. Granularity is the keyword in online content, and the market is still open for a holistic solution.

“As the world of media and advertising is moving so swiftly ahead, the requirements from our big enterprise clients are not only to have the best possible, most accurate, data available on their surrounding market and their competitors. We also need to be ready to innovate and integrate these datasets into decision making flows in more agile ways. For example, our results must be actionable – we need to identify potential target customers and activate programmatic advertising towards them. With our patented platform and the new round of funding, I believe, we are well positioned to execute on these expectations and be driving force in cross-platform audience measurement in the future, too”, says Verkasalo.

Verto Analytics announced last week that they secured $13.4 million in growth-financing led by Conor Venture Partners, Open Ocean Capital, and Finnish Industry Investment with participation from Steve Farella, Chairman of MDC Media, and Steve Marshall, CEO of Invision. The round of investors also includes Ben Feder, head of investments for Tencent and former CEO of Thomson Reuters.

According to Steve Farella, “An integrated, single-source, cross-platform measurement will be the normin the future”. Steve Marshall also mentions that the missing link has always been a lack of true cross-platform currency “I now see the opportunity for Verto to fill that need across the industry, I am looking forward to helping them leverage their disruptive platform to build solutions that will potentially change the future of cross-platform advertising”.

In an interview with Dr. Hannu Verkasalo, he mentions that the key goal over the long term is to become the independent and trusted service that guides media buyers and media sellers in the market with their solution. Verto plans to use the new capital to fuel the market growth, boost its customer success program, and upgrade its Helsinki-based Verto Data Lab – a centre of excellence dedicated to continued innovation for the next decade.

“We operate in Finland and the US. Finland is our place for product development and management, innovation and data science, and the US is perfect for customer relations and sense of marketing.

Verto Analytics was Nordic-led and that is still the case. With our new board members, we are shifting towards being more U.S. centric. We are welcoming the two angel investors Steve Farella and Steve Marshall, who will be able to help us build the sales team we need to be able to scale revenues” – Dr. Hannu Verkasalo.

To learn more about Verto services, read their blog, follow them on Twitter, or learn more at www.vertoanalytics.com