BlueOcean Raises $15M Series A from Insight Partners to Bring AI-Powered Brand Intelligence to the World’s Most Ambitious Companies

San Francisco, CALIF. – WEBWIRE – Wednesday, July 21, 2021

In a world where everyone is fighting for attention and we put higher expectations for what a brand should deliver, the value of brand intelligence has never been greater. To empower marketers and business leaders to use data rather than gut instinct to outpace competitors, BlueOcean launched its AI-powered brand intelligence platform last July after two years of development and today announced $15M in Series A funding from global venture capital and private equity firm Insight Partners. 

 The new funds will be used to expand the team, double down on features that have proven to be the most valuable to customers, deepen its investment in AI, and build on its existing customer base that includes brands that represent more than $18 trillion in market value. These include Microsoft, Bloomingdale’s, Alteryx, Panda Express, Cisco, Riot Games and Juniper Networks.

“Brands desperately need to take action from the torrent of data available to them, but without the proper tools the value of the data is essentially useless,” said Rachel Geller, Managing Director at Insight Partners. “BlueOcean is built from the ground up to provide every marketer with the ability to make the right decisions from the largest enterprises to the fastest-growing direct to consumer brands.”

BlueOcean uses AI to deliver actionable recommendations driven by a proprietary data model that maps where a brand sits within the marketplace. By using real-time AI-sentiment algorithms that analyze 1110+ data sources, BlueOcean’s core product, Brand Navigator, delivers an unprecedented level of intelligence so that brands can immediately see new growth areas, track momentum, category shifts, and predict a competitor’s next move. 

“With the rapidly shifting privacy context, the importance of Brand and being able to measure their impact on corporate value is essential for every business,” explained BlueOcean co-founder and CEO Grant McDougall. “We’ve already helped some of the world’s most ambitious brands accelerate growth and outpace their competitors and with Insight as our new partners, we will be able to bring Brand Intelligence to everyone.”

Until now, companies looking to improve their brand had to hire consultancies that spend months and millions of dollars to produce brand audits. This massive industry relies heavily on expensive and labor-intensive research which is oftentimes outdated by the time it’s delivered. By leveraging real-time data analysis and automated strategy recommendations,  

“Insight is the perfect partner for us to grow BlueOcean because of their decades of experience scaling up SaaS companies like Qualtrics and Moat,” said Liza Nebel, BlueOcean co-founder and President. "With this fresh capital, we’re excited to arm the world’s most recognizable brands with AI-powered intelligence and strategy.”

To learn more about using BlueOcean for an always-on brand strategy, go to blueocean.ai. 

About BlueOcean 

Based in San Francisco, BlueOcean provides brand strategy as a service to deliver actionable recommendations, and always-on tracking. Using its proprietary AI-powered strategy engine, BlueOcean mines, analyzes and triangulates hundreds of data sources to arm organizations with insights into how to unlock growth relative to competitors with strategic marketing recommendations that can be acted on immediately to drive overall brand equity and health. 

BlueOcean was co-founded by CEO Grant McDougall, COO/President Liza Nebel, and Chief Data Scientist Matthew Gross who bring decades of experience in brand building for Chevron, AT&T, HP, Toyota, Samsung, Disney, American Express, Apple, Microsoft, and others. The trio co-founded BlueOcean after realizing much of the data mining and analysis needed for brand strategizing could be automated and at the same time, it could offer actionable advice that marketing teams and c-suite executives could deploy quickly. 

To learn more, go to blueocean.ai. 

About Insight Partners

Insight Partners is a leading global venture capital and private equity firm investing in high-growth technology and software ScaleUp companies that are driving transformative change in their industries. Founded in 1995, Insight Partners has invested in more than 400 companies worldwide and has raised through a series of funds more than $30 billion in capital commitments. Insight’s mission is to find, fund, and work successfully with visionary executives, providing them with practical, hands-on software expertise to foster long-term success. Across its people and its portfolio, Insight encourages a culture around a belief that ScaleUp companies and growth create opportunity for all. For more information on Insight and all its investments, visit insightpartners.com or follow us on Twitter @insightpartners.