News

HubSpot announced today it has secured $32 million is Series D funding, financed by Sequoia Capital, Google Ventures and Salesforce.com. This marks the first joint investment for the three companies. This is the fourth round of financing round for HubSpot.

HubSpot CEO Brian Halligan said the company will allocate a large portion of the funding toward research and development, as the company continues its commitment to innovating inbound marketing for the SMB market.

"The fundamental way that people shop, learn, and buy has changed radically in the last few years,” Halligan said. “HubSpot helps transform the way businesses market from outbound marketing (cold calls, email blasts, and direct mail) to inbound marketing (Google, blogs, social media, mobile, etc.).”

As new Cloud-optimized marketing strategies such as social media, paid search and search engine optimization effectively deliver both short and long-term results, leading marketing firms are expanding their Cloud expertise and connections. BtoB demand-generation agency Bulldog Solutions has joined the Marketing Cloud, a consortium of Cloud-based marketing services providers focused on transforming and improving the way companies manage and execute end-to-end marketing campaigns.

The Marketing Cloud is a collection of Cloud-based marketing services designed to make internal marketing functions more efficient and external marketing programs more effective. Organizations are running marketing programs focused on delivering a more streamlined approach to powerful enterprise Cloud computing capabilities, without the cost, risk and complexity associated with traditional marketing platforms.

You’ve heard of category killers. SAS thinks it has a category creator. With the acquisition of marketing resource management pioneer Assetlink, SAS believes it has stretched beyond the standard marketing resource management (MRM) solution for retailers and other verticals. According to Assetlink CEO Chetan Saiya, the combination will bring Integrated Marketing Management (IMM) and its lead management capabilities to the forefront.

“There’s a tremendous convergence happening right now in the amount of media and the amount of automated messaging that a company manages,” Saiya said. “Companies are having to very tightly integrate the data from their messaging with the impact that it has on sales and marketing. We think it creates the new category of integrated marketing management.”

Aprimo Inc. and The Pedowitz Group recently announced a software/services alliance. Under the new partnership, The Pedowitz Group will provide BtoB strategy, program design, implementation, integration, creative services and outsourced demand generation for Aprimo Marketing Studio On Demand, Aprimo's cloud-based solution for Demand Generation and Marketing Operations.

"The Pedowitz Group has established world-class best practices and techniques that allow BtoB marketing and sales organizations to quickly align and rapidly gain ROI from their investments," said Jeff Chamberlain, VP of BtoB Solutions at Aprimo. "This alliance combines the powerful on-demand marketing automation capabilities in Aprimo Marketing Studio with The Pedowitz Group's leading demand generation agency expertise, providing more implementation options for Aprimo's growing BtoB customer base."