James Hercher

This week, I caught up with a startup from outside the world of data-driven advertising, but with an interesting position when it comes to ecommerce advertising. That’s Clearco, a Canadian fin tech company founded in 2015, which, earlier this month, raised a $100 million in financing from the bank Macquarie Group. The digital-native ecommerce brand category is often thought of as a child of venture capital.

Simon Property Group, the largest shopping mall operator in the world, is taking its biggest step yet into the world of data-driven advertising. On Thursday, the company launched Simon Media Network, its version of a retail media network. Simon isn’t a total newcomer to advertising, said CRO Jared Blechman, who joined the company this year after a long stint in biz dev leadership at the NBA.

Much like the ecosystem of life that surrounds a blue whale, a market of AI SaaS vendors is springing up around the biggest AI companies. And AI data startup Micro1 is emblematic of the shifting nature of these early-stage AI vendors. The company began in 2022 by offering an enterprise SaaS product: an AI agent companies could use for recruiting talent. It would interview the company’s internal hiring managers to refine its models and conduct candidate prospecting.