John Sculley, Former Apple CEO and Co-Founder of Zeta Global, joins Cheddar to discuss a new funding round done by Zeta Global. The company is now estimated to be worth $1.3 billion, after raising $140 billion in August.
Sculley talks about what Zeta Global is looking for when it comes to acquisitions. Since 2007, the firm has bought almost a dozen companies, and now potential targets are coming to the company directly. Sculley says Zeta's growth rate is almost 40% each year, and it's very profitable. He believes smaller companies want to be advised by the cloud marketing company.
Zeta Global serves about 70% of the Fortune 500 companies.
The company's goal is to get bigger at a fast pace and continue growing. Sculley talks about the marketing duopoly of Google and Facebook, and why the two tech companies have had such success in the marketing world.
Fresh off of a $42 million Series B Fundraise, co-founder and CEO of Chapter, Cobi Blumenfeld-Gantz, joined Cheddar to discuss the company's business model and how it will use the capital going forward. He explained that Chapter is a Medicare advisor that searches savings on medical options in order to help users find the right plan for them. "We want to make sure we can help all of our existing members and as many new Americans find the right Medicare coverage, so we're hiring aggressively for the best talent we can," Blumenfeld-Gantz said.
Apple's iMessage has come under fire after a Google executive accused the fellow tech giant of bullying — Android Users. Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google SVP of Android, said that Apple's lack of RCS adoption is holding the industry back while the company uses peer pressure to bolster iMessage.
Fresh off of receiving an innovation award at ShowStoppers @ CES 2022, Iasha King, co-founder of SOLO Secure joined Cheddar to explain how its platforms, the GoSOLO app and the SOLO Backpackpacker device, helps improve personal safety for users. "People just don't know what's going on around them, so it's very important that you're using smart technology to provide them with what's going on," she said. "For example, if there has been an increase in robberies in a neighborhood, that's something that our technology would inform a user."
Ellen Fitzsimmons-Craft, assistant professor of psychiatry at Washington University School of Medicine, joins Cheddar News to discuss how chatbots can help prevent eating disorders and the research that uncovered these findings.
