Boomtrain

About Boomtrain

Founded in 2012 by Christian Monberg and Nick Edwards, Boomtrain established itself as a marketing technology company centered on artificial intelligence. The San Francisco-based firm developed a platform designed to enable brands to personalize communication with their customers across various digital channels, including email, web, and mobile apps. Before co-founding Boomtrain, where he served as CTO, Monberg was the VP of Interaction at Hornall Anderson and founded HAX, an R&D lab within Omnicom. Edwards, who acted as CEO, previously worked in marketing at Ooyala and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.

The core of Boomtrain's offering was a machine learning engine that analyzed user behavior to deliver individually relevant content and predictive recommendations. This technology allowed marketers to automate the creation of personalized experiences for each customer, aiming to increase engagement and cut through digital noise. The platform's features included high-speed A/B testing, semantic analysis, and content performance metrics. Boomtrain's business model was geared towards enterprise-level clients, with a notable focus on media and publishing companies like CBS and Dow Jones. The company generated revenue by providing its SaaS-based marketing cloud to these businesses.

Boomtrain's journey included several funding rounds, accumulating over $14.1 million. A significant Series A round in October 2015 brought in $12 million, with investors like Sierra Ventures, Cota Capital, and Crosslink Capital participating. The company also made a strategic acquisition of Nudgespot. In July 2017, Zeta Global, a larger data-driven marketing technology company, acquired Boomtrain for an estimated $35 to $40 million. The acquisition was primarily for Boomtrain's technology and its engineering and data science teams. Following the deal, Boomtrain's technology was integrated as the personalization engine within Zeta Global's marketing hub, ZetaHub, and co-founder Chris Monberg transitioned to the role of CTO at Zeta Global.