Pulsate startup raising $1.2m from Paypal and others

From TechCrunch via linkedin - Posted Feb 1, 2015 by Mike Butcher (@mikebutcher)

Pulsate, a startup with a platform to deliver content for brands based on a user’s location and preferences, has raised $1.2 million in funding from PayPal and Dunnhumby (the customer science company). The money will be used to expand the platform and service customers.

Menlo Park-based Pulsate is a so-called “end-to-end context marketing” platform. Brands use it to surface the right kind of content into their apps and also leverage location.

Founder and CEO, Patrick Leddy says Pulsate integrates with new or existing apps, then its SDK collects information on the way users behave inside the app. It also collects social data, geofences and data on Beacons the app sees to deliver this relevant content. “Location alone is a weak context, for interactions to make sense you need to segment against behavioural data, interests, past purchases and that’s just the beginning. Think of Beacons as the cherry on top of a layered contextual cake,” he told us.

Competitors to Pulsate include Gimbal, Urban Airship and Estimote, among others.