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LinkedIn has entered an agreement to acquire Oribi, an Israel-based marketing analytics company. A current leader in professional networking, LinkedIn plans to integrate Oribi into its marketing solutions platform to enhance capabilities in measuring website conversions with automated tags, according to a blog post from Tomer Cohen, Chief Product Officer at LinkedIn.

“Today’s marketers rely on multi-pronged strategies to reach their audiences,” Cohen wrote. “Understanding which channels and messages have the greatest impact on the decision to take a desired step, such as a buyer requesting a product demo or a job seeker applying to a job posting, is critical to the effectiveness of any marketing campaign.”

LinkedIn will open an office in Tel Aviv as part of the deal. Oribi is led by founder Iris Shoor. Shoor’s team brings “deep analytics expertise” to support building out attribution technology capabilities, according to Cohen.

“The acquisition will expand our international presence so we can continue delivering products that meet the evolving needs of our global customers and members,” Cohen added. “Our investment in Oribi builds on our focus to create solutions that connect organizations with their professional audiences.”

In other customer experience and marketing software news…

CrafterCMS Announces Second Round of Financing From Lighter Capital

CrafterCMS, an open-source headless CMS, has announced a second round of funding from Lighter Capital, which originally invested in CrafterCMS in 2019.

“CrafterCMS continues to scale to meet growing customer demand, which we’ve seen accelerate as major enterprises and hyper growth startups are looking for a modern content platform on which to build next generation digital experiences,” Mike Vertal, President and CEO of CrafterCMS, said in a press release.

“With growth comes the need for financing, and Lighter Capital has proven to be an ideal partner for us,” Vertal continued. “This second round of capital will allow us to accelerate our expansion plans and do so without any of the ownership dilution of traditional venture capital financing. At the same time, it will foster the discipline to maintain both capital efficiency and a strong balance sheet for the long term, allowing us to focus entirely on driving customer success and nurturing our open source community.”

CrafterCMS offers an open-source, API-first and Git-based headless content management platform. The CMS vendor features self-managed, on-premises enterprise support and managed private SaaS/PaaS operations and support.

“Crafter is an ideal Lighter Capital client,” Jon Prentice, investment director at Lighter Capital, said in a press release. “We look for strong recurring revenue models and capital efficient operators. Mike and his team have built a scaling company. Investment from Lighter allows them to immediately access capital to achieve goals and boost growth without dilution or changing the company’s vision.”

Related Article: 8 Tips to Build a Winning Customer Experience Strategy

Level AI raises $20 million

Another provider of artificial intelligence-driven solutions has an investment. This time it’s Level AI, which has AI-driven technology that supports contact center solutions. It announced new product features along with a $20 million Series B financing round.

New features include agent screen monitoring and recording. Level AI officials said these capabilities support companies’ moves to hybrid and remote work models and contact centers migrating to the cloud.

Neeraj Agrawal at Battery Ventures, which led Level AI’s Series A financing round, also led the $20 million Series B financing round. Existing investors ENIAC and Village Global also participated. Level AI has now raised $35 million.

“When we launched our platform in late 2020, amid COVID-19, we knew there would be demand for smarter, more nimble technology that would leverage conversational artificial intelligence to help enterprises more quickly and efficiently solve customer issues in the cloud and improve the overall customer experience,” Ashish Nagar, Level AI’s Chief Executive and a former Amazon Alexa product manager, said in a press release.

“But we could not have predicted how fundamental this technology would become for enterprises and the response we would get from customers who are hungry for innovation in this space after being sold to by legacy companies who have not innovated for decades.”

Related Article: Using AI to Build More Personal Customer Connections

NICE Debuts AI-Powered Capabilities in CXone Spring 2022 Release

Customer experience software solutions provider NICE has announced the Spring 2022 release of CXone. Company officials say the new capabilities help find friction points in web and mobile experiences. NICE also added bots and assistants for both voice and chat.

“In today’s age of instant gratification, customers expect speed and efficiency while spending minimal effort on receiving service,” Paul Jarman, CEO of NICE CXone, said in a press release. Dispelling friction and guiding customers in the moments when they need support is key to making experiences flow and building relationships that last.”

CXone Guide leads customers to online application forms without human assistance, NICE officials said. It gives pop-ups data on the page to help customers and is integrated with CXone Expert’s knowledge management capabilities and web chat.

Mobile developers can add messaging features in their native application with Mobile SDKs for iOS and Android. Self-service bots are now available for digital chat and voice such as Microsoft Azure, Amazon Lex and IBM Watson, and NICE now integrates Google Agent Assist on voice and chat channels.

Related Article: Uniform Launches Composable DXP, NICE Introduces CX Interactions & More CX News

Jivox Announces Personalized Commerce Marketing Upgrade

Digital marketing technology software provider Jivox has announced the launch of its Personalized Commerce Marketing offering. Jivox officials said the solution is designed for B2C digital commerce marketers. The five key capabilities include:

• Jivox dynamic product ads (with built-in carousel support)
• Shoppable ads built on headless commerce architecture
• Feed-based decisioning
• Best seller recommendation
• Cross channel analytics and sales attribution
• Consented first-party data and identity

“Retail and DTC brands have been focusing on digital commerce long before the pandemic hit, but not with urgency,” Diaz Nesamoney, Founder and CEO of Jivox, said in a statement. “COVID simply accelerated the process because choices became limited and stores were more difficult to access.

“Consumers now prefer to engage with brands through their websites and mobile apps, specifically on their phones. This behavior quickly made brands, especially digital commerce marketers, realize they need to engage with their customers more directly and make it easier for them to purchase the products they are looking for.”