Behind Los Angeles-based Emotive’s Move Into Atlanta’s Growing MarTech Scene

Could e-commerce marketing benefit from a little bit of southern hospitality? 

The team behind Los Angeles-based Emotive thinks so. 

After raising a $50 million Series B round, Emotive is expanding and opening an office in Atlanta.

Emotive’s platform helps e-commerce brands scale 1:1 text messaging campaigns with customers to improve online conversion rates. This moves away from the email blasts and one-way SMS campaigns that tend to go unread. While big brands also use the platform, Emotive’s key customers are mid-sized e-commerce brands found on Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce. 

“Our inboxes are under assault and the smartphone is increasingly our de facto Internet access device of choice,” says Murat Bicer, general partner at CRV, the firm that led the Series B round. “It’s not uncommon to send dozens of texts to friends, family, and loved ones throughout the day. In a competitive world chock full of choices, brands that want to authentically connect with customers have to evolve and go where discussions are happening and that’s not always in inboxes. Emotive is perfectly poised to become the best way for companies to quickly engage people because Emotive fosters meaningful conversations where customers are having them.”

Founded just over two years ago, Emotive says it is tripling the size of its team to over 200 employees during 2021. 

The team also announced several new C-Suite hires, coming from SalesLoft, SpaceX, Drift, and ZocDoc. 

Atlanta-based Adam Waid, formerly of SalesLoft and Salesforce, will join Emotive as Chief Customer Officer. “Emotive is the first human-to-human marketing platform that uses conversational text messaging to help eCommerce brands exponentially grow revenue, while other email and text message platforms still deliver a 1-to-many experience through the archaic newsletter blast,” Waid said. “I loved that vision, as well as the leadership’s focus on culture, and the real opportunity to help revolutionize how companies modernize and enhance the e-commerce experience.”

Hypepotamus asked Waid why Atlanta was the right choice for the growing MarTech team. 

“The real question is Why wouldn’t tech companies choose Atlanta?!,” said Waid. “The diversity of local talent and Atlanta’s positioning in the e-commerce industry is perfect for the hyper-growth of Emotive. As we look to scale our business, we are excited to tap into Atlanta’s abundant talent pool and great startup scene.”

Waid said that the team has 20 openings for its new Atlanta office, which range from roles in sales, customer success, and technical support.

Emotive will also be using the Series B funding to open an office in Boston.

 

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Photo by Meghan Schiereck on Unsplash