CPE News (3/18/2021) – Information Resources, Inc. (IRI), a portfolio company of New Mountain Capital and Vestar Capital Partners, has acquired Intelligent Shopper Solutions (ISS), a leading retail consumer insight provider, from Kognitiv Corporation for undisclosed amount.
IRI and Kognitiv also entered into a partnership agreement pursuant to which IRI and ISS will explore opportunities for IRI’s retailer clients to leverage Kognitiv’s unique Platform-as-a-Service to scale their partnerships, connect peer-to-peer and deliver new value to consumers through hyper-personalized experiences within their ecosystem.
With over 550 employees across 50 countries, Kitchener, Ontario based Kognitiv is a B2B technology growth company with a singular focus on enabling collaborative commerce for their global clients and their most important consumers.
Aimia Inc. (TSX: AIM) owns a 48.9% equity stake in Kognitiv.
Formerly known as LMG Insight and Communication (I&C), ISS became part of Kognitiv following the combination of Aimia’s Loyalty Solutions business with Kognitiv in 2020. Aimia formerly Groupe Aeroplan established ISS in 2007. In 2018, Aimia sold its Nectar loyalty program and related assets, including ISS U.K. and Intelligent Research businesses, to J Sainsbury plc. for $105 million.
Chicago, Illinois IRI is a leading provider of big data, predictive analytics and forward-looking insights that help CPG, OTC health care organizations, retailers, financial services and media companies grow their businesses. IRI has been a New Mountain portfolio company since 2011 and December 2018, Vestar led a new investment in IRI with New Mountain and Vestar jointly governing IRI.
photo credit: pixabay
News Release
IRI Acquires Retail Consumer Insights Provider Intelligent Shopper Solutions (ISS) from Kognitiv Corporation
Acquisition Expands IRI’s Loyalty Solutions Capabilities for Enhanced Retailer/Supplier Collaboration
CHICAGO and WATERLOO, CANADA — March 18, 2021 — IRI®, a global leader in innovative solutions and services for consumer, retail and media companies, today announced that it has acquired Intelligent Shopper Solutions (ISS), a leading retail consumer insight provider that enables collaboration between retailers and suppliers, from Kognitiv Corporation. As part of the transaction, IRI also entered a partnership agreement with Kognitiv, a B2B technology organization headquartered in Waterloo, Canada, which is a world leader in collaborative commerce deployed through its unique Platform-as-a-Service.
“We are thrilled to welcome ISS to the IRI family as we continue to invest in our industry-leading capabilities and expertise and build on our track record of successful loyalty collaboration programs,” said Andrew Appel, president and CEO of IRI. “The addition of ISS expands IRI’s platform to provide CPG clients a more complete view of consumer shopping habits across even more leading retailers. Further, the talented ISS team brings deep expertise in providing rich, loyalty-based consumer behavioral insights, which we look forward to leveraging, along with our unparalleled data assets from more than 500 million loyalty cards, to deliver enhanced collaboration and growth for IRI clients. We also look forward to our ongoing partnership with Kognitiv, which will create new opportunities for collaboration with our clients, assisting them deliver increased value to their consumers.”
ISS became part of Kognitiv following the combination of Aimia Inc.’s Loyalty Solutions business with Kognitiv in 2020. ISS brings extensive retail consumer insights expertise and a cloud-based software platform with capabilities and retailer relationships that are highly complementary to IRI’s existing offerings. ISS’s platform processes sales and loyalty program data from retailers and allows users to easily review performance and generate actionable insights that inform merchandising and marketing decisions. ISS also offers a proprietary behavioral segmentation tool that creates customer segments based on shopping behavior.
With the addition of ISS, IRI is an even stronger and more differentiated loyalty solutions partner for clients:
IRI clients will benefit from enhanced consumer insight expertise and capabilities that ISS brings to further support IRI’s existing loyalty products and gateways; and
IRI clients will benefit from the deep talent of the ISS team in developing truly customer-centric retail experiences.
IRI will be better positioned to serve a broader footprint of global clients by adding ISS gateways with leading retailers across North America, Europe and Asia Pacific.
In the near term, ISS will operate a stand-alone operating subsidiary of IRI. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
In addition to the acquisition of ISS, IRI has entered into an innovation and marketing partnership with Kognitiv. Through this partnership, IRI retailer clients will have the opportunity to leverage Kognitiv’s unique Platform-as-a-Service to scale their partnerships, connect peer-to-peer and deliver new value to consumers through hyper-personalized experiences within their ecosystem.
“As part of IRI, ISS will be well positioned to continue offering best-in-class solutions and capabilities and drive more differentiated growth for CPG retailers and suppliers around the world,” said Peter Schwartz, founder and executive chairman of Kognitiv. “Partnering with IRI makes tremendous sense as we share a common belief in the strategic application of big data, particularly zero-party data, to drive new opportunities for our clients and new value for their most important consumers. This partnership will allow Kognitiv to accelerate our vision for collaborative commerce and bring a unique and complementary set of capabilities to both organizations.”
About the IRI Partner Ecosystem
IRI fundamentally believes that delivering differentiated growth for clients requires deep, highly integrated partnering with a variety of best-of-breed companies. As such, IRI works closely with a broad range of industry leaders across multiple industries and sectors to create innovative joint solutions, services and access to capabilities to help its clients more effectively collaborate and compete in their various markets and exceed their growth objectives. IRI is committed to its partnership philosophy and continues to actively enhance its open ecosystem of partners through alliances, joint ventures, acquisitions and affiliations. The IRI Partner Ecosystem includes such leading companies as 84.51°, Adobe, The Boston Consulting Group, Comscore, Data Plus Math, Experian, GfK, Gigwalk, Google, Ipsos, Mastercard Advisors, MaxPoint, Omnicom, Oracle, Pinterest, Research Now, Simulmedia, SPINS, Survey Sampling International, Univision, Viant, Yieldbot and others.
About IRI
IRI is a leading provider of big data, predictive analytics and forward-looking insights that help CPG, OTC health care organizations, retailers, financial services and media companies grow their businesses. A confluence of major external events — a change in consumer buying habits, big data coming into its own, advanced analytics and personalized consumer activation — is leading to a seismic shift in drivers of success in all industries. With the largest repository of purchase, media, social, causal and loyalty data, all integrated on an on-demand, cloud-based technology platform, IRI is empowering the personalization revolution, helping to guide its more than 5,000 clients around the world in their quests to remain relentlessly relevant, capture market share, connect with consumers, collaborate with key constituents and deliver market-leading growth. For more information, visit www.iriworldwide.com.
About Kognitiv
Kognitiv Corporation is a B2B technology growth company with a singular focus on enabling collaborative commerce for their global clients. Kognitiv’s Platform-as-a-Service technology and business model addresses emerging trends like the subscription economy, DTC and hyper-personalization by enabling clients to participate in collaborative commerce through the creation of safe environments within their own ecosystems. Headquartered in Canada, and employing over 550 people across 50 countries, Kognitiv focuses on Retail, Financial Services, Media, Telecom and Hospitality.
For more information, visit https://kognitiv.com.
# # #
IRI Contact:
Shelley Hughes
Email: Shelley.Hughes@IRIworldwide.com
Phone: +1 312.474.3675
Kognitiv Contact:
Hilton Barbour
Email: Hilton.barbour@kognitiv.com
Phone: +1 647.922.9300