Insider, a marketing platform for emerging markets, secures $2.2M to expand

Insider, a unified online marketing platform out of Turkey, has secured a $2.2 million Series A round of financing, bringing its total funding since launching in 2012 to $3.3 million. That may not sound a lot, but it’s a lot for the region and considering it’s targeting a global market, especially emerging markets outside the US. Assuming its product is competitive, it can therefore use its capital efficiency to take on bigger and better-funded competitors that wouldn’t be able to make emerging markets their worth-while.

The 107 employee startup now has offices in London, Singapore, Dubai, Warsaw, İstanbul, Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta.

The platform is aimed at optimizing marketing spend, and targeting online campaigns. Competitors include AgilOne ($41M raised), Custora ($6.5M raid) and Retention Science ($9.5M raised).

The round was led by 212, with participation by Wamda Capital and Dogan Group’s Oncu GSYO venture capital firms, alongside existing investors from Galata Business Angels (Melih Odemiş, Emre Kurttepeli and Erinc Ozada).

Hande Cilingir, the CEO and co-founder, said the funding will be used to invest in predictive modelling, segmentation and auto-optimization. “Unlike others we help marketer optimize spend from the get go, rather than just promising higher conversions and revenue,” she said.

Marketers can use it to post campaigns with AdWords and Facebook, and to send a discount only to those customers who are less likely to buy/or subscribe (based on the sector), rather than sending it to those customers who were already planning to make a purchase.

The model is subscription-based for a monthly fee, or does “benefit pricing” (charging a commission based on the revenue generated on a campaign). It claims to be able to access 600 million unique users/month across partners.

The startup has 6 co-founders: Hande Cilingir, Serhat Soyuerel; Arda Koterin; M. Sinan Toktay; Okan Yedibela; and Muharrem Derinkok.

The startup was initially a true bootstrapped project. Hande and Serhat built Insider after making their money via an English-language school in Turkey.