Primus Announces Growth Investment in Certona

Cleveland, OH – September 27, 2016 – Primus Capital (“Primus”) today announced a significant growth investment and minority recapitalization in San Diego-based, Certona, the leader in omnichannel personalization solutions for the world’s largest brands and retailers. The funding will be used to grow market share, accelerate product development and expand services and support for existing and new clients.

Certona pioneered the use of patented machine learning and predictive algorithms for real-time profiling of individual shoppers across various digital retail channels. Within 3-4 clicks on a site, Certona’s personalization platform enables retailers to accurately predict the next best action for the shopper to deliver the most relevant, in-the-moment shopping experience. As a result, Certona’s clients experience significant improvements in customer engagement, conversions and sales.

“The digital commerce industry is experiencing rapid growth due to ever-increasing consumer demand,” said Geoffrey Hueter, Ph.D., CTO and co-founder of Certona. “This funding will enable us to fuel strategic initiatives around new market opportunities, product innovations and support offerings.” Meyar Sheik, CEO and co-founder of Certona, added, “We look forward to working with Primus as our strategic partner to bring capital and market perspective to help Certona with this exciting growth stage. Primus’ track record of success with SaaS companies will be extremely valuable in further scaling the business over time.”

Certona, founded in 2004, now serves over 40 billion personalized consumer experiences a month for many of the world’s leading brands and retailers, leveraging data from every consumer engagement point. The investment from Primus will enable Certona to continue its impressive track record of innovation while expanding to new markets and geographies.

“As digital commerce takes a larger share of the overall retail market, Certona continues to set the pace by providing robust, best-of-breed personalization solutions to an impressive retail client base. We are excited about Certona’s growth prospects and impressed with the company’s solid business fundamentals and strong leadership team,” said Ron Hess, Director of Primus. Vasant Kamath, Principal of Primus, added, “Certona’s award-winning product suite and predictive analytical capabilities sets the company apart in the e-commerce technology space. We are confident that our partnership will further the company’s market leadership and benefit its clients by individualizing the way shoppers engage with retailers and brands, regardless of channel or touchpoint.” As part of the recapitalization, Hess and Kamath will join the Certona board of directors.

About Primus
Primus is a growth-oriented private equity firm focused on investing in leading healthcare, software, and technology-enabled companies. Primus partners with exceptional management teams to accelerate growth, improve the operating performance, and increase the value of the companies in which they invest. Primus can pursue buyouts, control and minority recapitalizations, secondary share purchases and expansion financings; this flexible approach enables them to engage with business owners and design tailored investment structures to meet the particular needs of the transaction. For more about Primus, please visit https://primuscapital.com.

About Certona
Certona’s robust omnichannel personalization solutions power individualized customer experiences for over 500 top e-commerce websites in more than 70 countries. Certona’s platform delivers 40 billion personalized experiences per month and generated $4 billion in client revenue in 2015. The company’s unique cloud-based Personalized Experience Managementâ„¢ platform increases engagement and conversions by leveraging one-to-one behavioral profiling, Big Data insights, and predictive analytics to present individualized content, promotional offers and product recommendations across all customer touchpoints. For more information, please visit http://www.certona.com.