Bluestone Equity Partners Invests in Qloo, the Leading AI Platform for Consumer Preferences
July 02 2024 - 8:00AM
Business Wire
Investment to help support planned rollout of
Qloo’s first self-service interface, continued expansion into new
verticals, including sports
Qloo to leverage Bluestone Equity’s deep
operating expertise and global network in Sports, Media &
Entertainment to help fuel ongoing expansion
Bluestone Equity Partners ("Bluestone"), the
institutionally-backed global private equity firm focused on the
Sports, Media & Entertainment industry, today announced a $20
million growth investment in Qloo, the leading Artificial
Intelligence (“AI”) platform for consumer tastes and
preferences.
Headquartered in New York City, Qloo operates a sophisticated
AI-powered intelligence engine, known as Taste AI, composed of
highly accurate behavioral data detailing how consumers around the
globe interact with more than half a billion lifestyle entities
including brands, media, sports, live events, film, travel, dining,
and more. For over a decade, Qloo has curated this unmatched data
set and developed an applied-AI technology to help companies better
understand and predict consumer preferences, while preserving
customer privacy.
Qloo’s proprietary AI models are capable of identifying
trillions of connections in milliseconds, assisting businesses
small and large – from local businesses to some of the world’s
largest and most well-known brands – to make better decisions and
personalize customer experiences in real time, without using
personally identifiable information. Through a flexible Application
Programming Interface (“API”), and soon a no-code self-service
interface, Qloo democratizes these AI-driven recommendations,
enabling a wide variety of businesses across industries and around
the world, to understand and anticipate the interests of customers
in order to drive revenue through product innovation and enhanced
customer engagement. Qloo services some of the leading companies in
the world, including Netflix, Starbucks, Universal Music Group,
PepsiCo, JCDecaux, Tablet Hotels, Michelin, and Ticketmaster.
“Qloo’s one-of-a-kind AI effectively and ethically generates
added-value for virtually any consumer-facing business,” said Bobby
Sharma, Bluestone’s Founder & Managing Partner. “It turns vast
troves of underutilized existing company data into immediately
impactful consumer insights and actionable opportunities,
maximizing revenue opportunities at scale. We are excited to help
bring this amazing technology deeper into the global Sports, Media
and Entertainment industry and its unmatched breadth and depth of
meaningful touchpoints with passionate consumers and viewers.”
“For more than a decade, Qloo has been the leader in deploying
cutting-edge AI technologies on our unparalleled, privacy-centric
cultural entity and behavioral databases to reveal the intricacies
of consumer tastes and preferences,” said Alex Elias, Co-Founder
and CEO of Qloo. “Qloo’s Taste AI has unlocked measurable value for
numerous Fortune 500 brands, including recently with companies in
the sports, entertainment, and live events sectors. We believe
there is tremendous opportunity for Qloo to provide further value
to these industries and are confident we will be able to do so with
Bluestone’s partnership. Qloo will utilize this opportunistic
investment for market expansion, launching a new self-service
insights platform, building out our team, and strategically
acquiring novel data sources and technologies that enhance our core
Taste AI technology.”
Qloo marks the fourth investment for Bluestone from its
inaugural $300 million fund launched in a single closing during the
first quarter of 2023. Bluestone is differentiated within Sports,
Media & Entertainment private equity through its combination of
blue-chip industry operating and investment experience, expansive
international network, institutional capital base, and
collaborative synergistic approach with portfolio companies.
About Bluestone Equity
Headquartered in New York City, Bluestone Equity Partners is a
private equity firm harnessing a unique combination of blue-chip
business and investing experience, coupled with deep industry ties,
to forge highly strategic capital partnerships with established
Sports, Media & Entertainment businesses and properties. Led by
Founder & Managing Partner Bobby Sharma, Bluestone strives to
partner with exceptional management teams and rights holders
seeking growth and scale on a global basis.
For more information, visit www.bluestoneequity.com and
@bluestoneequity on LinkedIn.
About Qloo
Qloo is the leading AI company demystifying the intricacies of
global consumer tastes and preferences. The company operates one of
the world’s most robust catalogs of notable people, places, things,
and interests, coupled with a consumer behavior and sentiment
database containing more than 10 trillion unique signals and zero
Personally Identifiable Information (PII). By leveraging
cutting-edge AI models, Qloo unlocks the value of these databases
to understand and predict audiences’ interests and affinities with
unrivaled accuracy. Since 2012, Qloo’s award-winning Taste AI
technology has helped multinational companies — including Netflix,
Starbucks, JCDecaux, and Michelin — drive growth by powering
personalized customer experiences and large language models,
superior recommendations, data-driven marketing strategies, and
advanced audience intelligence. Qloo is the parent company of
TasteDive, a cultural recommendation engine and social community
that allows users to discover what to watch, read, listen to, and
play based on their existing unique preferences.
Visit www.qloo.com to learn more.
View source
version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240702486758/en/
For Bluestone: +1-212-597-2700
Investors: ir@bluestoneequity.com Media: pr@bluestoneequity.com
For Qloo: Media Contact Lucas Piazza
518-258-4250 Press@qloo.com