Investing in Roq.ad
The following excerpt is from Allied’s original deal memo to investors. To review investment opportunities in full, please consider joining the syndicate at Allied.vc/join
As part of our 6-Factor Investment Thesis, we continuously look for companies exhibiting accelerated growth within a rapidly expanding and large target market.
Enter Roq.ad
Roq.ad enables brands to identify consumers across multiple devices, rather than treating each device as a separate user.
The average U.S. household has more than ten connected devices, while most of us have at least one phone, a tablet, and a computer (source: Statistia). Historically, technologies like 3rd party cookies and IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers) allowed advertisers to track consumers across various devices, websites, apps, etc., to allow for more efficient, effective, and targeted advertising.
However, in response to changing global privacy laws, Google announced last year it would phase-out 3rd party cookies beginning in Q1 2021. Furthermore, Apple followed suit, announcing it would abandon its IDFA tracking identifier, therefore making it incredibly difficult for brands to track and target users with advertising.
As a result, without an alternative solution, ad-based companies like Facebook are anticipated to lose an estimated 7% of their revenue as part of an overall data-collection industry valued at $227B per year.
For any company that sells products or services online, Roq.ad solves this critical and expensive pain-point of identifying consumers across multiple devices, enabling brands to improve their advertising ROI and save billions of dollars each year.
By leveraging its proprietary ML algorithm through a simple SaaS API integration, Roq.ad seamlessly integrates into a company’s existing tech stack, thus future-proofing their client’s past technology investments and drastically shortening client sales cycles.
Most notably, Roq.ad is 100% compliant with all European and North American data privacy laws, including GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), among others.
Why we are thrilled to support Carsten and the team at Roq.ad
Since our first meeting, Carsten has continued to impress us with his vast expertise within the AdTech and MarTech industries.
For instance, Carsten previously co-founded the mobile advertising platform Madvertise in 2008, growing the company to a Series C with more than 100 full-time employees and offices in Berlin, New York, and San Francisco.
Following a successful IPO on the EPA stock exchange, Carsten began working towards his next big vision: Roq.ad
With two decades of experience in the AdTech and MarTech industries, including a Senior Manager role at AOL Europe, Carsten has significant industry knowledge and domain expertise, while attracting a highly talented team of machine learning specialists, senior software engineers, and business development executives.
When we combine the team’s deep domain expertise with management’s proven track record of building, scaling, and exiting a successful technology startup, Roq.ad is unquestionably the type of team in which we want to invest.
As for the market opportunity…
Over the past year, nothing has dominated headlines in the AdTech and MarTech industries more than Google’s phasing-out of 3rd party cookies coupled with Apple’s announcement they are abandoning IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers).
As a result, this new inability for brands to track consumers and gain insights has led to a scramble for innovative and more sustainable customer identity solutions. In the U.S. alone, spending on identity solutions for marketing and advertising is projected to reach $8.2B by 2024, rapidly growing at a rate of 19.7% CAGR, with the EU and other developed regions following closely behind.
As a result, Roq.ad is strategically positioned to exploit the tailwinds of this industry shift and we are thrilled to announce our investment in their Seed+ round; partnering with Carsten and the team to help brands identify consumers and drive more efficient marketing.
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