Sojern

History

Originally based in Omaha, Nebraska, Sojern was founded in 2007 by Gordon Whitten. In April 2011, Yahoo! veteran Mark Rabe succeeded Whitten as CEO, though Whitten has stayed on as a member of the board of directors.

Sojern began in the boarding pass advertising space; it was the first company in the U.S. with exclusive patents for Printed and Online Boarding Pass customization technology. In 2008, the company’s airline partners, including Delta Air Lines and Continental Airlines, began utilizing Sojern’s technology to offer targeted ads on boarding passes. Sojern released a new media platform, the Sojern Traveler Platform (STP), in 2011 that focused on improving its technology's targeting capabilities.

To protect its platform technology, the company received a U.S. Patent for “providing customized or personalized content, relevant and timely messages and targeted advertising to travelers based on their destination and dates of travel” in March 2012.

Since its founding, Sojern has been expanding with a 3,811% fiscal year revenue growth between 2008 and 2012. They've made Deloitte's Fast 500 List four years in a row (from 2013-2016). The company has also made moves towards international expansion, establishing a London office in 2013 and offices in Dubai and Singapore in 2015.

Product

The Sojern Traveler Platform collects data on travelers searching and booking behaviors and uses it to place ads in front of travelers while they are shopping for travel. Specifically, the company offers solutions in such areas as display advertising, mobile, video, Facebook campaigns, prospecting, and retargeting. Sojern uses data on traveler behavior in addition to targeting algorithms and programmatic bidding to provide these solutions.

In 2016, Sojern became the first company in travel to be named a DoubleClick Certified Marketing Partner, giving them access to the full suite of DoubleClick Marketing products, including YouTube.

Funding

With over $40 million raised, Sojern ranked #14 on travel news website Skift’s “Top 31 Most Heavily Venture-Funded Startups in Travel.” Sojern received $16 million in Series A funding in 2008, $10 million and then $7.5 million in Series B in 2013, and secured a Series C funding round of $10 million in 2014. The company’s investors include Industry Ventures, Focus Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, Trident Capital, and Triangle Peak Partners.

In 2016, Sojern announced they hit the $100 million-annual revenue run rate threshold.

Privacy

Sojern collects and uses anonymous, non-personally identifiable information. In order to identify what information and offers a site visitor might be interested in, anonymous cookies record which pages a site visitor has browsed or which products were purchased on partners’ websites. This data is anonymous and cannot be used to identify visitors.

Travel Trends

In addition to using data to advertise to travelers, Sojern also provides reports and insights on global travel trends. Their travel trends reports have been cited by several sites including Huffington Post, USA Today, and Fortune.

Sojern has also released joint research on travel and consumer trends with Think with Google.

Achievements

2016 Best Places to Work — San Francisco Business Times

2016 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 List

2015 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 List

2014 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 List

2013 Deloitte Technology Fast 500 List (#60)

2013 Mediapost.com Digital Out-of-Home Awards: Finalist - Best Venue/Location-Based Execution

2011 Technology Company of the Year – AIM Institute

2010 Edison Awards Winner – Media & Visual Communications

2009 OnMedia Top 100 for Technology Innovation

2009 HSMAI Advertising Award

2008 OMMA Award for Online Advertising Creativity