Unilever Foundry, the global platform that enables Unilever to innovate through collaboration, has named Glimr as the winner of its global search for the Marketing Tech Scaleup of the Year.
The winner was announced on the main stage at Digital Shoreditch Festival following a five-minute presentation and further five-minute Q&A to a panel of judges; Jan Harley, director at Unilever Ventures, Rose Lewis, co-founder of Collider and Tarah Feinbery, CMO of Kite. Glimr will now have the chance to pilot with one of Unilever’s global brands, and will attend Lions Innovation in Cannes as one of its Foundry 50 – Unilever Foundry’s collaboration with the festival in June.
Glimr was one of the three qualifiers taken through to the final after being named Best Marketing Tech Scaleup of Europe at Digital Shoreditch on Monday.
It uses iBeacon technology to allow retailers and brands to build 1-1 relationships with their customers, bridging the offline and the online world to allow them retarget their shoppers after they have left the store.
Earlier this year, Glimr collaborated with the Unilever Foundry and Knorr to create the world’s first physical retargeting campaign, using iBeacons technology to monitor users’ offline data to create targeted mobile ads.
Jeremy Basset, head of Unilever Foundry, said: “Innovation is a key driver for our sustainable growth plan and is core to how we look to engage with people through our brands – partnership with scale-ups enables this to progress.
“The standard we saw from all three finalists was outstanding, and they are all strong candidates for Unilever Foundry’s current and upcoming briefs.
“However there could only be one winner, and Glimr stood out for bridging the gap between online and offline behaviour through data, and their interesting use of iBeacons as a push rather than a pull for consumers. I am confident that this is just the start of an exciting period of growth for Glimr.
“Scaleups are pioneering the world of marketing, and I am looking forward to seeing how Glimr works with our brands.”
Robert Hedberg from Glimr added: “We are overwhelmed to have won Unilever’s search for the Marketing Tech Scaleup of the Year and every process we’ve gone through has been invaluable.
“Working with a global company like Unilever and presenting in front of our peers at Digital Shoreditch has done wonders for our exposure and experience.
“Being able to gain links with such a fantastic network of brands, and huge consumer base, will be invaluable in helping us scale up globally.”
Glimr beat off competition from Wobe and Little Bird who were named Best Marketing Tech Scaleups of [Asia and Europe] respectively.
Wobe builds financial and business tools for low and middle-income Indonesians, enabling users can start a micro-business in selling prepaid phone airtime, electricity, water payment vouchers and bus and train tickets.
Little Bird is a platform that helps businesses unlock valuable information in structured social data, with an algorithm that allows brands to identify the biggest influencers in their market based on their sphere of influence, rather than what they say.