Sequen secures $16M Series A to replace cookie-based tracking

Sequen has closed a $16 million Series A funding round, bringing its total raised to date to $22 million. The company plans to use the capital to scale its real-time personalization technology and ranking infrastructure for consumer companies. The Series A round was co-led by White Star Capital and Threshold Ventures, with participation from prior investors including Greycroft, which led the startup’s seed round.

The startup utilizes what it calls large event models to analyze user behavior in real-time. According to CEO and co-founder Zoë Weil, modern technology no longer just recommends content, but subtly influences user desires over time, leading many to suspect platforms are eavesdropping on their conversations. To address this, Sequen positions its technology as a potential alternative to privacy-invasive cookies for Fortune 500 companies. Weil explained that Sequen’s approach is different: “Our large event models learn from live user actions, not just clicks and scrolls, but also hovers, conversations, and stuff within a given session — not static profiles or third-party cookies” Weil believes that Sequen could eventually replace the cookie.

Despite the privacy-forward approach, Sequen claims its technology can demonstrate crazy revenue lift for its clients. Businesses integrate with the startup’s RankTune platform to access these models via APIs. The system’s pricing is structured around requests per second (RPS), with tiers offering up to 500 RPS or 1,000 RPS. The startup reports significant performance metrics among its early customers:

• A large furniture company achieved a 7% revenue lift after adopting Sequen, compared to a previous 0.4% lift that was historically considered a win.
• Fetch Rewards experienced a 20% net revenue lift in under 11 days.

Weil noted that these models can generalize to streams of real-time events as they receive them, making user identity irrelevant to the personalization process.

The startup is led by Weil alongside co-founders Ethan Benjamin, Mo Afshar, and Alexander Thom. Raphael Louca recently joined the company as chief product officer. The 14-person team, which includes veterans from companies like Meta and DeepMind, has already processed some 10 billion monthly requests.

Why it matters

Sequen is attempting to commoditize high-end personalization infrastructure previously reserved for tech giants, offering a potential alternative to the privacy-invasive cookie for Fortune 500 companies.