Why We Built Amperity
While building enterprise scale marketing software at Appature and IMS Health, our founders were struck by how many companies were using only a fraction of their customer data. Business leaders, data specialists, and marketers all knew that they needed to leverage more of their customer data in order to compete, and they went to extreme measures in an effort to do so.
We watched as brands spent tens of millions of dollars and thousands of people-hours on schema mapping, manual data cleaning, normalization, and ETL coding to transform data into usable formats. When the databases were ultimately built and populated, they were rigid and prone to break if data was missing or incorrect, or when new data sources were added. Simply put, the outcomes utterly failed to deliver and grew worse every day.
The most formidable hurdle, however, was identity resolution at scale. Consumer brands have neither the software nor the expertise to resolve customer identities across sources. Most technologies require common keys in order to link records and form customer profiles, but the majority of systems have not been built to integrate with one another. This means no common keys, no matches, no unified customer profiles, and a huge amount of valuable customer data wasted.
This firsthand look at the struggle to make data actionable galvanized us to find an answer. We vetted countless vendors that claimed to solve this problem, but all were using the same manual, slow, and incomplete methods we had seen fail again and again. We talked to roughly a hundred brands and they all shared the same data struggles. After realizing that no purchased or built-in-house platform offered the capabilities that brands needed to unify and activate all their customer data, we set out to build a solution ourselves.
Amperity launched in September 2017, with a customer base that included many of the world's most loved consumer brands. The Amperity team is thrilled to be part of this vibrant community and to be contributing to the vision of helping marketers and analysts use customer data to unleash their potential and to transform the future of consumer marketing.
Read more about our origin story and why we started Amperity.
Kabir is CEO at Amperity, and a technology entrepreneur and senior executive with experience at many stages of the lifecycle: start-up/bootstrap, venture funding, M&A, and IPO experience. He co- founded Amperity in January 2016 with the vision of using data and software to unleash the potential of marketers and analysts at the world’s most admired consumer brands. Kabir’s previous company, Appature, developed a relationship marketing platform that enables brands to deepen customer relationships through an integrated data infrastructure, multi-channel campaign toolset, and innovative analytics engine. In recognition of the company’s success, Kabir was named one of BusinessWeek’s “Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs of 2009” and was also named a 2011 Puget Sound Business Journal “40 Under 40" honoree. In 2012, he was awarded the U.S. SBA “Young Entrepreneur of the Year” award.
Derek is the CTO and co-founder of Amperity, where he is responsible for product, engineering, operations, and information security. He co-founded Amperity in January 2016 with the vision that access to accurate, consistent, and comprehensive customer data can transform consumer marketing at the world’s most loved brands. Derek was part of the founding team for Appature, a leading SaaS marketing automation platform for healthcare companies. Prior to Appature, Derek held engineering leadership positions at a variety of business and consumer facing startups, with a focus on large scale distributed systems and security.
Amy brings more than two decades of financial and operational management experience to Amperity, having led finance and operations across the spectrum from venture-backed technology companies to a publicly-traded enterprise software company. Amy held multiple financial management roles at Onyx Software - an enterprise software company she joined when the company was generating $3 million in annual revenue with 35 employees. Onyx went public in 1999 and Amy served as its CFO during 2000 and 2001 when the company was generating $120 million in revenue with over 800 employees. In addition to Onyx, she has served as CFO for Basho Technologies, doxo, Gist (acquired by Blackberry), Tegic (an AOL subsidiary acquired by Nuance), and Wildseed (acquired by AOL).
Chris comes to Amperity with over 25 years of experience delivering products and bringing large scale services to market at Microsoft. He most recently co-created and led Healthcare NExT, an initiative to accelerate healthcare innovation through artificial intelligence and cloud computing. Prior to that, Chris drove all product development efforts for OneDrive and SharePoint. In previous roles he led the development of Windows, Internet Explorer, and Outlook.com.
Matt leads the Customer Success function at Amperity, which is dedicated to ensuring that customers become heroes within their organizations as they deliver previously unimaginable business value. Matt comes to Amperity with over 30 years of technology industry and customer success experience. Most recently Matt was Senior Vice President in Salesforce's Customer Success Group, responsible for driving product adoption worldwide for their scale customers. Prior to that, Matt held senior positions at Nordstrom as SVP of Customer Care, and at Microsoft where he was General Manager building the support and service function for Office 365 during its formative years. Matt brings a demonstrated, deep passion for people-leadership, and for creating an environment in which people can bring their most creative, curious, optimistic, hard-working, collaborative, and passionate selves to work every day.
Ralph brings more than 20 years of experience building global sales organizations and developing successful go-to-market strategies for both private and publicly held SaaS companies. Ralph was most recently Chief Revenue Office at Visual IQ (acquired by Nielsen) where he ran world-wide sales, operations, channel alliances, and technology partnerships. Prior to that, he spent five years at Adobe in senior management and executive roles growing Adobe’s Marketing Cloud business, including the development of the initial go-to-market strategy for Adobe’s Data Management Platform (DMP) platform. Ralph has also held leadership positions at leading companies such as Omniture (acquired by Adobe) and Offermatica (acquired by Omniture).
Kelly led the Sales team at Tableau, a Seattle-based data visualization company, which encompassed all Worldwide Sales and Field Operations, including Direct Sales, Channel Sales, Pre-Sales, Professional Services, Training, Customer Success, Technical Support, and Sales Operations.
Kelly started as the first salesperson in February 2005, one month before the launch of Tableau version 1.0. She helped build and grow Tableau from a small start-up to a multi-billion dollar public company as a member of the core executive team.
This is the first time Kelly has joined an outside board of directors since she retired from Tableau last year.
Matt invests in a broad range of software-driven companies with a focus on companies in the Cloud, Machine Learning and Intelligent Apps space. His words of advice to would-be entrepreneurs: “Truly understand the customer and their needs first and work your way back to a technology-differentiated solution to their needs from there.” Before joining Madrona in 2000, Matt was vice president of business process for the Genuine Parts Company (NYSE:GPC). He also was an engagement manager at McKinsey & Company, concentrating on strategy and marketing in technology-driven sectors and prior to that worked in investment banking at Credit Suisse.
Rajeev is currently the CEO of Accolade, the market leading on demand healthcare concierge for employers, health plans, and health systems. Rajeev joined the company as a board member, investor, and CEO in November, 2015. Today, Accolade has 700 employees focused on driving better outcomes and increased satisfaction for healthcare consumers while delivering incredible savings for payers.
Prior to that, Rajeev co-founded Concur (NASDAQ: CNQR), the global leader in travel and expense management, in 1993 two years after graduating from college. His initial role in the company was in product management and his early years were focused on the product management and development organizations. In the twenty years that followed, he worked in nearly every role in the business – culminating in his final role as president, chief operating officer, and board director for the last nine years of his tenure.
Kabir is CEO at Amperity, and a technology entrepreneur and senior executive with experience at many stages of the lifecycle: start-up/bootstrap, venture funding, M&A, and IPO experience. He co- founded Amperity in January 2016 with the vision of using data and software to unleash the potential of marketers and analysts at the world’s most admired consumer brands. Kabir’s previous company, Appature, developed a relationship marketing platform that enables brands to deepen customer relationships through an integrated data infrastructure, multi- channel campaign toolset, and innovative analytics engine. In recognition of the company’s success, Kabir was named one of BusinessWeek’s “Best Young Tech Entrepreneurs of 2009” and was also named a 2011 Puget Sound Business Journal “40 Under 40" honoree. In 2012, he was awarded the U.S. SBA “Young Entrepreneur of the Year” award.
Derek is the CTO and co-founder of Amperity, where he is responsible for product, engineering, operations, and information security. He co-founded Amperity in January 2016 with the vision that access to accurate, consistent, and comprehensive customer data can transform consumer marketing at the world’s most loved brands. Derek was part of the founding team for Appature, a leading SaaS marketing automation platform for healthcare companies. Prior to Appature, Derek held engineering leadership positions at a variety of business and consumer facing startups, with a focus on large scale distributed systems and security.
Amy brings more than two decades of financial and operational management experience to Amperity, having led finance and operations across the spectrum from venture-backed technology companies to a publicly-traded enterprise software company. Amy held multiple financial management roles at Onyx Software - an enterprise software company she joined when the company was generating $3 million in annual revenue with 35 employees. Onyx went public in 1999 and Amy served as its CFO during 2000 and 2001 when the company was generating $120 million in revenue with over 800 employees. In addition to Onyx, she has served as CFO for Basho Technologies, doxo, Gist (acquired by Blackberry), Tegic (an AOL subsidiary acquired by Nuance), and Wildseed (acquired by AOL).
Chris comes to Amperity with over 25 years of experience delivering products and bringing large scale services to market at Microsoft. He most recently co-created and led Healthcare NExT, an initiative to accelerate healthcare innovation through artificial intelligence and cloud computing. Prior to that, Chris drove all product development efforts for OneDrive and SharePoint. In previous roles he led the development of Windows, Internet Explorer, and Outlook.com.
Matt leads the Customer Success function at Amperity, which is dedicated to ensuring that customers become heroes within their organizations as they deliver previously unimaginable business value. Matt comes to Amperity with over 30 years of technology industry and customer success experience. Most recently Matt was Senior Vice President in Salesforce's Customer Success Group, responsible for driving product adoption worldwide for their scale customers. Prior to that, Matt held senior positions at Nordstrom as SVP of Customer Care, and at Microsoft where he was General Manager building the support and service function for Office 365 during its formative years. Matt brings a demonstrated, deep passion for people-leadership, and for creating an environment in which people can bring their most creative, curious, optimistic, hard-working, collaborative, and passionate selves to work every day.
Ralph brings more than 20 years of experience building global sales organizations and developing successful go-to-market strategies for both private and publicly held SaaS companies. Ralph was most recently Chief Revenue Office at Visual IQ (acquired by Nielsen) where he ran world-wide sales, operations, channel alliances, and technology partnerships. Prior to that, he spent five years at Adobe in senior management and executive roles growing Adobe’s Marketing Cloud business, including the development of the initial go-to-market strategy for Adobe’s Data Management Platform (DMP) platform. Ralph has also held leadership positions at leading companies such as Omniture (acquired by Adobe) and Offermatica (acquired by Omniture).
Kelly led the Sales team at Tableau, a Seattle-based data visualization company, which encompassed all Worldwide Sales and Field Operations, including Direct Sales, Channel Sales, Pre-Sales, Professional Services, Training, Customer Success, Technical Support, and Sales Operations.
Kelly started as the first salesperson in February 2005, one month before the launch of Tableau version 1.0. She helped build and grow Tableau from a small start-up to a multi-billion dollar public company as a member of the core executive team.
This is the first time Kelly has joined an outside board of directors since she retired from Tableau last year.
Matt invests in a broad range of software-driven companies with a focus on companies in the Cloud, Machine Learning and Intelligent Apps space. His words of advice to would-be entrepreneurs: “Truly understand the customer and their needs first and work your way back to a technology-differentiated solution to their needs from there.” Before joining Madrona in 2000, Matt was vice president of business process for the Genuine Parts Company (NYSE:GPC). He also was an engagement manager at McKinsey & Company, concentrating on strategy and marketing in technology-driven sectors and prior to that worked in investment banking at Credit Suisse.
Rajeev is currently the CEO of Accolade, the market leading on demand healthcare concierge for employers, health plans, and health systems. Rajeev joined the company as a board member, investor, and CEO in November, 2015. Today, Accolade has 700 employees focused on driving better outcomes and increased satisfaction for healthcare consumers while delivering incredible savings for payers.
Prior to that, Rajeev co-founded Concur (NASDAQ: CNQR), the global leader in travel and expense management, in 1993 two years after graduating from college. His initial role in the company was in product management and his early years were focused on the product management and development organizations. In the twenty years that followed, he worked in nearly every role in the business – culminating in his final role as president, chief operating officer, and board director for the last nine years of his tenure.
People are what will truly make or break this company, so we've created a culture where each team member can bring their unique and authentic self, while doing their best work.
Fully automated provisioning and deployment with extensive instrumentation and monitoring, novel machine learning techniques, and trillion entry scale data infrastructure.
With many failures and successes in previous ventures, our seasoned leadership team mentors and inspires us to make smarter mistakes and only make them once.
Our products are transforming how the world's most loved brands interact with their customers, unleashing a whole new way of doing marketing.
Connect all of your customer data, unleash the potential of your teams, and supercharge your marketing, analytics, and CX.
