Marketing startup IntelligenceBank acquires compliance rival Red Marker

Melbourne marketing startup IntelligenceBank has landed its first M&A deal, acquiring rival AI-powered brand compliance platform Red Marker from global education giant Kaplan.

The terms of the deal were not disclosed. IntelligenceBank will acquire Red Marker’s technology stack, IP, and team of 20 based in Sydney, the US and UK. It will give the combined entity an annual recurring revenue of around $20 million.

It’s the martech platform’s first acquisition since it banked US$37 million (A$50m) from US B2B investor Five Elms Capital this time three years ago.

Red Marker automates brand, legal and regulatory compliance reviews across marketing materials and websites, covering similar ground to IntelligenceBank, which helps marketing teams manage and accelerate sign off on digital assets, creative content approvals, compliance, and creative project management.

IntelligenceBank CEO Tessa Court said the merger will offer brands a single platform to help ensure content across print, social, email, and digital channels is automatically branded and legally approved.

“With these two technologies coming together, we are in a unique position to provide one of the best brand and regulatory compliance solution in the market across the content lifecycle,” she said.

“ We have partnered with Red Marker for several years with shared customers already and we are looking forward to expanding the joint offering across our global customer base.”

Red Marker was founded by SocietyOne cofounder Matt Symons who exited to Kaplan in March 2017.

IntelligenceBank has customers in 55 countries, and has been used by brands such as Hertz, NAB, Bupa, the Queensland Government, Isuzu, Kubota, and RACQ.

Court said the danger for firms is they can face large fines for inaccurate, misleading and out-of-date advertising, product disclaimers and websites.

“For large corporations, marketing compliance is a multi-million-dollar problem,” she said.

“Failure to comply with regulations results in businesses having to not only pay fines to the regulator but also compensation to affected customers. This is compounded with reputational brand damage”.

IntelligenceBank helps reduce that risk