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Marketing Evolution

Category: AI Infrastructure

System of Record for Marketing Performance—the Substrate turns fragmented marketing data into trusted, AI-ready context for measurement, planning, optimization, and agents. Marketing Evolution was founded in 2000. The company is led by Stephen Williams. Based in New York, USA. Team size: 300-400. Total funding raised: $72.7M. Latest round: Venture Round. Key investors include Insight Partners, Energy Impact Partners, Zetta Venture Partners.

Founded
2000
Headquarters
New York, USA
Team size
300-400
Total funding
$72.7M

Value proposition

Substrate unifies and reconstructs marketing performance data into a durable system of record—privacy-safe, person-level context without cookies/PII—so teams and AI agents reason from one trusted foundation (Plus Company: up to 35% ROAS improvement).

Products and solutions

The Substrate - System of Record for Marketing Performance (unification, ontology, journey reconstruction), Darwin - Conversational proactive intelligence for plan/measure/optimize/monitor, Journey Reconstruction & Enriched Data IP - privacy-safe person-level context without cookies/PII

Unique value

Substrate Journey Reconstruction & Enriched Data IP creates person-level marketing performance context without cookies or PII, with marketing ontology so humans and any model/agent share one causal system of record

Target customer

Mid-to-large enterprise marketers with complex omnichannel media portfolios, particularly those facing privacy challenges and data fragmentation issues

Industries served

Marketing Technology, Advertising Technology, Enterprise Software, Data Analytics, Privacy-First Marketing

Technology advantage

Combines marketing-specific ontology layer with AI/ML to create unified data foundation that powers both measurement and optimization, enabling faster implementation (no months of setup) while maintaining privacy compliance

How they differentiate

Purpose-built System of Record for Marketing Performance (Substrate) plus Darwin proactive intelligence—causal measurement infrastructure for humans and AI agents, not another dashboard

Main competitors

Adobe Analytics, AppsFlyer, SAS Customer Intelligence 360

Key partnerships

Insight Partners (lead investor), AWS Marketplace partnership, Salesforce AppExchange integration, Ground Control Data (ANZ distribution partner), SoftwareOne marketplace distribution

Notable customers

Plus Company (up to 35% ROAS / 23% campaign efficiency via Substrate), Fortune 500 insurance and financial services (enterprise Substrate deployments), Global auto manufacturer (50% sales contribution increase), Insurance company (7% member growth), Bank (+6pts brand equity boost)

Major milestones

Raised $26.1M growth funding led by Energy Impact Partners (2019), Raised $20.6M Series B led by Insight Venture Partners (2018), Insight Partners-led ~$13.9M growth round (Dec 2025), Launched Substrate System of Record for Marketing Performance + Darwin (Aug 2026)

Growth metrics

Substrate broadly available (Aug 2026) after enterprise production since 2024; Darwin conversational intelligence live; ~300 employees (PitchBook)

Market positioning

Enterprise System of Record for Marketing Performance—measurement science rebuilt as AI-ready data infrastructure (Substrate) with Darwin for agentic decisioning

Geographic focus

North America, with global enterprise reach

Patents and IP

US Patent 10,032,121 for technology that identifies and monitors enterprise best practices in marketing analytics

About Stephen Williams

Stephen Williams brings over 15 years of experience in entrepreneurship, product management, and technical leadership. Prior to Marketing Evolution, he served as Chief Operating Officer at EDO, Inc. (2019-2022), a data and analytics company. He also held leadership positions at Neustar, Inc. as VP of Marketing Solutions and General Manager of Customer Intelligence (2015-2019), and at ROKKAN, a digital agency. His experience spans marketing effectiveness, data analytics, and digital media transformation.

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