Webflow, a web design and hosting platform that raised over $330 million at a $4 billion valuation, is expanding into new areas of marketing optimization.
Today, Webflow announced that it has acquired Intellimize, a startup that leverages AI to personalize websites for unique visitors. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. However, a source familiar with the matter told TechCrunch that the acquisition price was in the “eight digits” range.
The majority of the Intellimize team (approximately 50 people) will be joining Webflow. However, some employees received reemployment benefits or were fired and given severance pay. Webflow did not disclose that number.
Webflow CEO Vlad Magdalin said Intellimize was a natural fit for Webflow's first acquisition because it meets a need shared by many of Webflow's customers: website personalization and optimization. .
“What many of our customer bases have in common is that they build professional websites that not only aim to look good, but ultimately drive business results. Many of our customers and partners have asked us to help them improve the performance of their websites so that they can attract new customers beyond the initial construction stage.” said. “Intellimize has quickly emerged as a very impressive product in this space, with many marketing and growth leaders raving about it. And by combining the strengths of our respective products and teams, we create an even stronger combination. It quickly became clear that it could be done.”
Guy Yarif, former head of vertical marketing at Twitter, co-founded IntelliMize in 2016 with Brian Webb and Jin Lim. While previously an executive at Yahoo, Yalif worked with Lim, then Yahoo's vice president of engineering, and Webb, who was the architect on his team of Yahoo's personalized content recommendations. (Full disclosure: Yahoo is his TechCrunch parent company.)
With Intellimize, Yalif, Webb, and Lim set out to build a platform that could combine their marketing know-how to generate personalized web pages for visitors on demand.
What is the motive? According to statistics cited by Porch Group Media, 74% of customers are dissatisfied when a website's content is not customized. Companies that use personalization not only report increased revenue, but also more efficiency in their marketing spend.
Intellimize taps AI to generate pages and automatically adjusts them based on user behavior (and where they're from). When a business creates a website template, Intellimize's AI plays with various knobs and dials to run experiments and provide the best results for visitors.
Now, Intellimize isn't the only one doing this.
Amazon's Personalize can drive customized product and search recommendations across the web. Startups like Optimizely, owned by Evolv AI and Episerver, use algorithms to automate certain forms of his A/B web testing. Not to mention generative AI-driven platforms like Adobe's GenStudio, Movable Ink, Mutiny, and Blend are rushing new and novel forms of experience personalization.
However, Intellimize has managed to gain a significant foothold in the market for AI-powered marketing through the power of its technology, partnerships, and advertising.
At the time of the acquisition, Intellimize had raised more than $50 million from investors including Cobalt Capital, Addition, Amplify Partners, and Homebrew, and had several strong customers including Sumo Logic, Dermalogica, and ZoomInfo.
“The Intellimize team had already built most of the personalization and optimization tools we were looking to build in-house, and had great enterprise customers using our solutions,” Magdalin said. I am. “Their team and product have demonstrated world-class expertise in machine learning and AI to power website personalization and conversion rate optimization. This is a great addition to Webflow’s existing platform. I believe it will be a powerful addition to the
So what changes can customers expect with Intellimize joining the Webflow group? Yarif emphasized that there aren't many disruptive changes. Intellimize will continue to be sold standalone to non-Webflow customers, but will increasingly be linked and integrated with Webflow services. Meanwhile, Yalif will be joining Webflow as “Head of Personalization” and will lead the company. What else do we do? — Personalization product work at Webflow.
“Joining Webflow allows us to scale and significantly accelerate our forward momentum,” Yarif said. “Webflow builds integrated solutions for building, designing, and optimizing websites. Intellimize is the foundation of the personalization and optimization part of that vision. Together, we are building an integrated solution for building, designing, and optimizing websites. It allows us to compete with larger, more expensive, and less usable players in the experience space.”
Here's Magdaline's take:
“Integrating Intellimize expands our primary audience beyond designers and developers…in the early stages. [of the merger]“We are focused on natively integrating both products, so our customers will be able to enjoy the best of Webflow and the best of Intellimize in one unified product experience later this year. Please look forward to it being possible.”