For years, marketers have been struggling with the same problem. Despite having access to vast amounts of customer data, it’s been a challenge to turn that information into meaningful, real-time customer interactions. CDPs entered the scene a number of years ago, helping marketers get one step closer to connecting data across systems and delivering personalized engagements, but they remained siloed and lacked the intelligence needed to serve up the right message to the right customer at the right time, resulting in wasted ad spend, disengaged customers and missed revenue opportunities.
Hightouch is redefining this paradigm with its customer data and AI decisioning platform. By working directly within a company’s data warehouse, Hightouch embraces a composable architecture, eliminating silos and ensuring that marketers can activate their customer data without being locked into rigid systems. Its AI-powered decisioning capabilities enable marketers to deliver hyper-targeted messages in the moment that matters to the customer, directly addressing the core pain point of previous solutions.
At Sapphire Ventures, we have deep experience backing sales and marketing technology companies at the intersection of AI. We know firsthand how critical it is for brands to meet their customers with precision and intelligence. Hightouch is making personalization truly possible, and its customers such as Spotify, Chime, Ramp and PetSmart are already seeing tremendous impact. These reasons, combined with our long-standing conviction in Hightouch’s founding team, are why we’re thrilled to lead the company’s Series D and support the team in reshaping the future of AI-driven marketing.
Finally Achieving True Marketing Personalization with AI Decisioning
Composable CDPs have transformed how marketers access and activate data, but without AI they’ve lacked the intelligence to drive real-time, personalized engagement. Data alone isn’t enough—marketers have long needed a system that not only unifies information, but also acts on it instantly, which is exactly where Hightouch stands out from other solutions.
With Hightouch, AI decisioning is embedded directly into the platform, turning raw data into actionable insights in real time. Instead of relying on predefined rules, AI dynamically determines the best message, timing and channel for every customer interaction. Whether it’s optimizing promotions based on browsing behavior or personalizing content across email, SMS and web, AI decisioning automates these decisions at scale in a way we haven’t seen before.
A Founding Team with a Bold Vision for AI-Driven Marketing
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At the core of Hightouch’s journey is its exceptional founding team. Co-CEOs Kashish Gupta and Tejas Manohar, along with co-founder and CTO Josh Curl, bring a rare combination of technical expertise and visionary leadership. With experience rooted in data infrastructure and automation—shaped in part by their time at Segment—they recognized that traditional CDPs were falling short. Marketers had access to more customer data than ever before, but lacked the real-time intelligence needed to drive personalization at scale.
As investors in Segment, we’ve been following the CDP space for years and have seen firsthand how the market has evolved. Hightouch promises to be the silver bullet marketers have been longing for. It’s our belief that this isn’t just an incremental improvement—it’s a fundamental rethinking of how brands engage with customers.
As Hightouch continues to push the boundaries of AI-driven marketing, we’re excited to support their vision. If you’re interested in learning more about Hightouch’s platform or joining their growing team, visit the Hightouch website for more information.
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This article is for informational purposes only. Nothing presented within this article is intended to constitute investment advice, and under no circumstances should any information provided herein be used or considered as an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy an interest in any investment fund managed by Sapphire. Information provided reflects Sapphires’ views as of a time, whereby such views are subject to change at any point and Sapphire shall not be obligated to provide notice of any change. Companies mentioned in this article are a representative sample of portfolio companies in which Sapphire has invested in which the author believes such companies fit the objective criteria stated in commentary, which do not reflect all investments made by Sapphire. A complete alphabetical list of investments made by Sapphire’s Growth strategy is available here. No assumptions should be made that investments listed above were or will be profitable. Due to various risks and uncertainties, actual events, results or the actual experience may differ materially from those reflected or contemplated in these statements. Nothing contained in this virtual event may be relied upon as a guarantee or assurance as to the future success of any particular company. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
