Ad-Tech Firm Cavai Raises $9 Million as It Eyes US Expansion and IPO

Ad-tech company Cavai, has raised nearly $9 million (6.5 million pounds) as it aims to expand internationally with a focus on the U.S. over the coming months. With the aim of driving further international expansion, initially into the U.S. having entered LATAM, APAC and EMEA over the last 12 months, the investment sees Cavai grow its number of investors as it looks to an IPO in the future. Development of its product portfolio is also expected from the cash boost too. Founded in 2018, Cavai’s platform offers what it describes as “conversational advertising” which has been developed to focus on offering privacy alongside in-ad commerce functionality, working with blue chip clients including Amazon, Nivea and BMW. Investors include Norway’s two largest venture players, Investinor and Idekapital, and ad tech industry specialist FirstPartyCapital. Speaking to Adweek, Steffen Svartberg, founder and CEO of Cavai, explained that the company had grown its valuation by five times over the last year as a result of seeing its revenue grow by three times year on year during the first half of 2021. “It's a mix of strong revenue growth and the big opportunity that lies within conversational and the consolidation that's happening within creative tech,” he outlined in a market that has seen a number of high-level IPOs and acquisitions of ad tech companies. “Advertisers and agencies want [fewer] partners and they are looking for partners with strong proprietary [and] unique tech that also understands that we need to address more of the communication needs that a brand has," he said. "That's bang on our vision and why investors see tremendous upside in our business case as we basically have built a new advertising format [slash] vertical (conversational) and at the same time we have the capabilities to develop new products that will help us move even faster going forward.” Investing and expanding He also admitted that the aim for the IPO was to take place in 2022 as it continues to “build the foundation or infrastructure” that will help it to succeed on the stock market. “One thing is listing based on hype, but doing well on the stock market, you need substance and a strong consolidation infrastructure and strategy. That's a mix of product [and] tech development and team to scale that out to the market." “It means we need to onboard an organization with the best possible people in our regions. We have built a cloud platform that can handle potential M&A and integrations with interesting companies we want to buy, and it requires us to nail talent acquisition to make sure all that happens as fast as possible,” he added. In a statement, Rich Ashton, managing partner of investor FirstPartyCapital. explained that the investment was a “no brainer” and the metrics generated by Cavai’s products “speak for themselves.” “Historically, creativity has been hard to automate and scale, which is perhaps why the ad industry has placed so much emphasis on hyper-targeting consumers through data, at the expense of the user experience. However, Cavai’s solution is a complete game-changer, enabling marketers to easily create highly-engaging online experiences that people actually want to interact with,” Ashton said. Cavai also aims to use the investment to further support existing international locations with offices currently based in Oslo, Norway; Stockholm; Helsinki; Copenhagen, Denmark; Amsterdam; Munich; Barcelona, Spain; London; New York; Seattle; Montreal and Singapore. Xaxis Teams Up With Cavai for Post-Cookie Creative Offer