SessionM, an industry leading mobile-first marketing automation and loyalty platform, announced today that General Atlantic, a leading global growth equity firm, has led a $35 million strategic growth investment round in the company. Salesforce Ventures also participated as a new investor, along with existing investors including Causeway Media Partners, Charles River Ventures, Highland Capital Partners and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

SessionM serves as a technical bridge between a company’s CRM database and its marketing stack. Its cloud-based SaaS platform gathers customer behaviors across all channels, appends the data to each individual’s profile instantaneously and triggers personalized responses through a real-time rules engine. In 2016, SessionM has processed 1.5 billion consumer behaviors each month, associated them to more than 250 million profiles and delivered 1.2 billion personalized engagements, each in less than 50 milliseconds on average. The SessionM solution works with existing marketing technology, including Salesforce, while also serving as an upgrade over older legacy systems.

According to a Gartner report on the building blocks of CRM, published in July 2016, “Creating, maintaining and leveraging a single view of the customer is hard to achieve internally and the required capabilities are not provided by CRM vendors. Many solutions fail to consider the myriad of channels used by customers to interact with organizations…(and) struggle to apply relevant customer information and insight to deliver appropriate customer experiences and to drive cross-selling/upselling and improve customer retention.”

“The objective of every CRM strategy is to improve customer loyalty. That requires transitioning beyond a static, list-based CRM to one that enables dynamic personalization as customers engage across various channels,” said Lars Albright, co-founder, and CEO of SessionM. “Our platform is built to enable customized customer interactions at scale. With General Atlantic’s strong expertise in the marketing technology sector, we look forward to adding even more resources to our platform, acquiring more blue-chip customers and further expanding our global footprint.”

“Delivering real-time, personalized marketing across multiple digital channels – particularly on mobile – is an immediate need in the marketplace and we believe SessionM is uniquely positioned to seize this opportunity,” said Jim Rossman of General Atlantic. “SessionM’s proven technology is used today by some of the largest consumer-facing enterprises in the world across nearly every category. We are proud to partner with Lars and the entire SessionM organization as they take on and disrupt legacy players in this emerging and critically important area of mobile marketing.”

Rossman, who will join SessionM’s board of directors, has been a senior advisor to General Atlantic’s global portfolio companies since 2012. He brings a distinguished track record of more than two decades of leadership experience in the marketing and advertising industry, including as president and chief operating officer at AKQA and chief operating officer at Digitas, both leading digital marketing agencies.

About SessionM

SessionM is the next-generation engagement and loyalty platform. The company’s cloud-based solutions integrate loyalty marketing technology with marketing automation and profile management capabilities to drive personalized consumer relationships through the mobile device and across channels. The company is headquartered in Boston with offices around the globe. For more information on SessionM, visit www.sessionm.com.

About General Atlantic

General Atlantic is a leading global growth equity firm providing capital and strategic support for growth companies. Established in 1980, General Atlantic combines a collaborative global approach, sector-specific expertise, long-term investment horizon, and a deep understanding of growth drivers to partner with great management and build exceptional businesses worldwide. General Atlantic has more than 100 investment professionals based in New York, Amsterdam, Beijing, Greenwich, Hong Kong, London, Mexico City, Mumbai, Munich, Palo Alto, São Paulo, and Singapore. www.generalatlantic.com

About Salesforce Ventures

Salesforce Ventures—Salesforce’s corporate investment group—invests in the next generation of enterprise technology to help companies connect with their customers in entirely new ways. Portfolio companies receive funding as well as access to the world’s largest cloud ecosystem and the guidance of Salesforce’s innovators and executives. With Salesforce Ventures, portfolio companies can also leverage Salesforce’s expertise in corporate philanthropy by joining Pledge 1% to make giving back part of their business model. Salesforce has invested in more than 150 enterprise cloud startups since 2009. For more information, please visit www.salesforce.com/ventures.