In-location experience management platform Raydiant acquires Sightcorp

Raydiant, the leading in-location experience management platform, has acquired Sightcorp, a spinoff company from the University of Amsterdam that provides state-of-the-art, proprietary AI-powered audience intelligence for digital signage, DOOH media, and in-store analytics. Raydiant and Sightcorp will jointly enable brands to create personalized on-screen, in-location experiences that generate anonymous audience and performance analytics to help them increase audience engagement, deliver valuable content, enhance messaging, and more. 

“To survive and thrive in the future of brick and mortar, brands must deliver a seamless in-location customer experience that’s convenient, digital, and personalised; yet many are held back by the complexities and high price point of achieving these goals,” said Raydiant Chief Executive Officer, Bobby Marhamat. “We’ve built Raydiant from the ground up to help solve these pain points and are thrilled to add Sightcorp’s unmatched technology into our product offerings to more deeply serve the evolving needs of brands, customers, and employees worldwide.”

Raydiant's 2021 "State of Consumer Behavior report" found that 60% of consumers have stopped doing business with a brand over one bad in-location experience, and Think by Google cites that people are 40% more likely to spend more than planned when they identify the shopping experience to be highly personalised. AI and digital signage solutions play key roles in delivering that personalisation. Together, Raydiant and Sightcorp will provide dynamic, optimised content on screens powered by real-time audience and performance data insights. Retailers and media network owners will gain the opportunity to sell advertising space at a premium accompanied by ad performance metrics, targeting capabilities, and more.

Sightcorp’s proprietary technology allows media owners to provide advertisers and media buyers with meaningful audience insights and data visualisations based on live analysis captured anonymously on-camera, including age, gender, opportunity to see (OTS), impression and viewer counts, and attention and dwell times. To ensure privacy, the Sightcorp DeepSight Toolkit blurs all faces by default and is built to process all data offline and locally. Sightcorp cites the highest accuracy rate compared to its competitors and is the only company applying 100% of the latest deep learning research in its audience analytics products.

Sightcorp by Raydiant’s Managing Director EMEA Joyce Caradonna says, “This acquisition hits all of the synergy markers for us and will allow us to grow faster. We are very excited to continue investing big in research and development to create smart and innovative solutions that owners of on-premise media networks, agencies, and advertisers can use to seamlessly deliver compelling and valuable content to their target audiences.” 

Sightcorp lists key players such as Intel and Simply NUC. Raydiant serves more than 3,500 customers in 63 countries, few of which include top brands such as First Bank, Dickey's BBQ, Harvard University, The Salvation Army, Red Bull, Chick-Fil-A, and Thomson Reuters. Additionally, Raydiant works with the U.S. gourmet burger chain Wahlburgers, owned by Raydiant investor Mark Wahlberg and family.

Jonny Smith, CEO of Simply NUC Ltd, says, "We have a great partnership with Sightcorp, and  we're excited about this acquisition as Sightcorp's innovative technology will help bring incremental value to Raydiant's clients in an array of industries by enabling real-time end-to-end intelligence from the cloud to the edge."

Raydiant has achieved 357% growth year-over-year in 2021 and is actively hiring in various cities around the U.S., such as San Francisco, as well as internationally to accompany Sightcorp’s new offices. The company plans to expand its global headcount by 300% in 2022. Sightcorp’s European team has a goal to grow from 20 team members to 100 in 2022, with plans to open offices in Lithuania and London.