Personalized recommendations are the next frontier of online experiences.
After spending years designing and building a platform that allows businesses to connect and engage with their customers without jeopardizing privacy, we’re announcing that we’ve raised $10 million in series A financing. This is a big moment for our small but mighty team. We are excited and grateful for the opportunity to bring advanced AI to businesses everywhere with our recommendation platform.
Our journey began way back in 2014 in a lab in Paris where we were working together as machine learning researchers. We often spent time sharing music recommendations with one another. The more we got to know one another, the better our recommendations became. Before long, we decided to take on the challenge of applying our machine learning research to the area of recommendations, focusing on solving the cold start problem of providing accurate recommendations for new or anonymized users.
We had noticed that the conversation around the way businesses leverage data was beginning to change and both felt very strongly there had to be a way for businesses to deliver exceptional experiences without relying solely on consumers’ personal information. After Alex started his Ph.D. program at Stanford and while Emile was finishing his in Paris, we continued to work nights and weekends to train our algorithm to provide precise and impactful recommendations with as little data as possible. After some surprisingly successful early tests in 2016, we recognized we were onto something special. With a bit of encouragement from our mentor and friend Sebastian Thrun, we made the leap into business.
Today, Crossing Minds is used by leading brands including Danone, Dutchie, Reelgood, or Inkbox and has evolved into a powerful platform that can drive online discovery and engagement for all types of businesses. But we’re only at the beginning of this journey.
Third-party cookies are being phased out as quickly as e-commerce and online content is exploding. In the chaos of the online universe, recommendation technology that can help customers find what they need and love quickly (without infringing on their privacy) is emerging as the next big business imperative — first-party cookies are replacing third-party and ad retargeting will make way for personalization.
Up to now, search functionality has filled that gap, but with the proliferation of online options and consumers’ increasing desires for truly personalized experiences, it’s no longer enough. As consumers, we’ve come to not only hope for, but expect e-commerce experiences to be personalized, and we feel frustrated when they’re not. In many ways, recommendation is the next frontier.
With Crossing Minds, we’ve built something we’re truly proud of — a platform that represents the best in advanced AI as well as the best practice when it comes to respecting and engaging with customers.
We believe this technology holds such exciting promise, and we can’t wait to see where this journey takes us next. Come join us!
Alexandre Robicquet & Emile Contal
