Increasing importance of content personalization via first-party data drives need for Tenovos’ disruptive, data-first approach to digital asset management
New York, November 21, 2022 – Tenovos, the modern data-first digital asset management (DAM) company, today announced it has raised a $10 million Series B investment led by S4S Ventures, a venture capital fund backed by shareowners of S4Capital plc, Stanhope Capital Group, and BDMI, part of Bertelsmann’s corporate venture arm Bertelsmann Investments. Existing investors including Progress Ventures, Revel Partners and Dublin Capital took part in the fundraising. Terms of the transaction have not been disclosed.
Tenovos is a New York-based SaaS DAM founded in 2018 by a team of software industry veterans, D. Scott Bowen and Sal Hakimi. The platform leverages productivity and performance insights, empowering global brands to streamline and automate the traditional complexities of creating and publishing optimized content at scale.
The company has grown rapidly, primarily across entertainment, consumer packaged goods, and retail segments, and counts Amazon, Brown-Forman, Canadian Tire, Glossier, Marvel, Mattel, Saks.com, and Twitch among its customers.
The company’s growth has been buoyed by significant industry tailwinds. As global brands experience loss of media signals in the wake of shifting data and privacy regulations, they are increasingly reliant upon creative content to drive more personalized digital experiences with their audiences.
Sir Martin Sorrell, Founder and Chairman, S4 Capital plc/Media.Monks, and Co-Founder and Partner, S4S Ventures said, “At S4S Ventures, we believe that intelligence derived from the intersection of content and data is foundational to modern marketing success, something we have found that we agree on with Scott and Sal. While many companies are still using DAM platforms that have neither the data nor insights they need, Tenovos empowers marketers with both to ensure their creative assets can impact engagement, loyalty, and revenue.”
Sanja Partalo, Co-Founder and Managing Partner, S4S Ventures said, “All brands need to build a foundation for intelligent content automation at scale. Tenovos impressed us with their capabilities in analytics that support data-driven content generation, and its speed of deployment. They are a modern marketer’s DAM.”
Keith Titan, Partner, BDMI said “With challenging times ahead, consumer brands, retailers, media and entertainment companies can’t afford to waste time or money within their sales and marketing programs. The Tenovos platform enables quick and definitive identification of high-performing product and marketing assets, plus a way to get those trusted materials into the hands of their key internal and external stakeholders instantly. It’s a next generation DAM solution.”
Scott Bowen, CEO at Tenovos said “Our vision for the future of DAM is to make it a foundational technology within the martech ecosystem, and the system of record for all content productivity and performance-related data. This vision is closely aligned to S4S Venture’s and BDMI’s focus on data-driven technologies focused on content, and we’re excited to realize it together.”
The company will use this investment to accelerate product development and expand global go-to-market channels for the business, which has recently expanded to Canada, UK and the Middle East. Ms. Partalo and Mr. Titan will join the Tenovos board in conjunction with the investment.
About Tenovos
Tenovos is a data-first digital asset management platform, intuitively designed to empower brands to streamline and automate the traditional complexities of creating and activating global content.
About S4S
S4S is a venture capital fund focused on early stage investments in the most promising technology companies serving the marketing and media industries. The fund is a joint venture between S4 Capital, the leading digital marketing group founded by shareowners of S4Capital plc, and Stanhope Capital Group. S4S is differentiated by its deep domain expertise, and benefits from the knowledge of the Media.Monks network of over 9,000 employees across 32 countries to identify, invest in and help scale up the most exciting tech companies in the sector.
For more information visit www.s4sventures.com.
About BDMI
BDMI is a wholly owned subsidiary of the global media, services and education company Bertelsmann. As a financially driven corporate venture investor, BDMI draws upon Bertelsmann’s global reach to provide not only capital, but also access to their network of businesses within Bertelsmann and across the media and tech industries. BDMI has invested in over 100 startups since 2007 and is currently focused on the categories of next gen media, web3, enterprise SaaS, and fintech.
For more information visit www.bdmifund.com.
About Bertelsmann
Bertelsmann is a media, services, and education company that operates in about 50 countries around the world. It includes the entertainment group RTL Group, the trade book publisher Penguin Random House, the music company BMG, the service provider Arvato, the Bertelsmann Printing Group, the Bertelsmann Education Group and Bertelsmann Investments, an international network of funds. The company has 145,000 employees and generated revenues of €18.7 billion in the 2021 financial year. Bertelsmann stands for creativity and entrepreneurship. This combination promotes first-class media content and innovative service solutions that inspire customers around the world. Bertelsmann aspires to achieve climate neutrality by 2030.
For more information visit www.bertelsmann.com.
