- Cere Network — the first blockchain CRM ecosystem platform optimized for service data integration and collaboration — has raised $3.5 million in seed funding
Cere Network — the first blockchain CRM ecosystem platform optimized for service data integration and collaboration — announced that it raised $3.5 million in a seed round of funding. Binance Labs, Neo Global Capital, Fenbushi Capital, Arrington XRP Capital, Kenetic Capital, Alphabit Fund, Block VC, Kosmos Capital, LD Capital, Monday Capital, Pre Angel Fund, Republic Labs, and several strategic funds also joined. And to fuel the growth of the Cere Network Ecosystem, the company has set up a new office in New York City and will be launching the Cere Network Innovation Factory in Berlin during Berlin Blockchain Week.
“As blockchain overcomes the technical development hurdle, business use cases that can strengthen the attitudinal wave of adoption will come out on top,” said NGC Ventures founding partner Roger Lim. “By creating a blockchain CRM ecosystem, Cere Network offers openness and immutability, dissuading existing data silos to rewrite a far more seamless and integrated experience across the customer data ecosystem. The commercial white space the company is growing into holds tremendous potential, and we’re excited to be in the front row seat as the company forms one of the leading frontiers in the ongoing maturation of the decentralized technology.”
The CRN industry is considered one of the fastest-growing segments in the software market with spending on CRM solutions growing by 15.8% and reaching $48 billion last year. But current CRM solutions are suffering from only having access to a limited pool of data which hampers companies’ ability to engage with customers in a meaningful manner.
“Unlike traditional CRMs, we’re focused on customer data privacy and secure data collaboration,” added Cere Network co-founder and CEO Fred Jin. “Our team is led by Silicon Valley veterans, with technology experience from Amazon, Twitch, and Bebo, who understands how to engineer solutions for the world’s most intricate problems. By building a complete solution on the blockchain, we are solving for CRM/CDP’s biggest issues in customization, efficiency, and secure and privacy-preserving data sharing.”
Some of the strategic investors who also participated include Lime co-founder and longtime Tencent executive Brad Bao,Alan Braverman (co-founder of 3 unicorn companies including Eventbrite, Yammer, and Xoom), Taiyang Zhang (Ren CEO), and Will Wang (Advisor of Huobi Global and former Head of Business Development and Investment for the Huobi Ecosystem Fund).
“We consider Cere Network as a pioneer in interoperability. Their platform far surpasses benefits in the CRM ecosystem, and will layout the standard for data preservation, sharing, and management across all industries. We strongly believe that there will be much synergy between Cere Network and our family of invested companies and look forward to their continued innovations,” explained Fenbushi Capital general partner Dr. Feng Xiao.
How does Cere Network work? Cere Network’s technology is able to capture user activity data throughout the customer journey and stores the information onto a secure and decentralized system that is integrated with the Cere blockchain. And businesses and vendors use permissioned proxy keys to access Cere’s microservices platform — which facilitates the ability for ecosystem customers to secure user data sharing and execute direct user acquisition across apps and brands.
“Blockchain technology will have a transformative impact on all data-driven industries, and Salesforce has put the CRM industry on notice with its own blockchain platform,” explained Kenetic Capital co-founder and managing partner Jehan Chu. “Cere Network is a next-generation blockchain solution that isn’t held back by legacy data and infrastructure debt. With Cere, data privacy, consent, and secure data collaboration are built into its blockchain-native foundation. In the age of GDPR, Cere’s Innovation Factory is in a strong position to leapfrog industry incumbents.”
