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§ Private Profile · Denver, CO, USA
Wayin is a technology company.
Wayin has raised $63.8M across 5 funding rounds.
Key people at Wayin.
Wayin has raised $63.8M in total across 5 funding rounds.
Wayin, now Cheetah Experiences, provides a self-service SaaS platform empowering marketers to build engaging, interactive digital experiences. Its platform enables non-technical users to design campaigns, directly gathering zero-party and first-party data from consumers. It facilitates reusable content across digital channels, streamlining the collection of customer insights and preferences.
Wayin was founded in 2010 by Richard Jones, Scott Johnston, and Scott McNealy. Their insight recognized brands' need to connect directly with consumers through dynamic digital interactions. Scott McNealy, co-founder of Sun Microsystems, brought industry experience, simplifying how businesses leverage digital engagement for audience understanding.
Marketers and agencies utilize Wayin's technology to enrich customer profiles and personalize engagement. Integrated into Cheetah Digital's marketing suite, the platform collects explicit customer data and permissions, fostering audience understanding. As Cheetah Experiences, it leads zero-party data collection, empowering brands to build meaningful data relationships by capturing declared preferences.
Key people at Wayin.
Wayin has raised $63.8M across 5 funding rounds. Most recently, it raised $15.4M Other Equity in September 2015.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sep 25, 2015 | $15.4M Venture Round | — | Dave Duffield, Hasso Plattner, Scott McNealy, U.S. Venture Partners | Announced |
| Sep 1, 2015 | $15M Series D | — | Andreessen Horowitz, August Capital, Greylock, Main Sequence Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Tenaya Capital, U.S. Venture Partners, Workday | Announced |
| Jul 1, 2014 | $13M Series C | U.S. Venture Partners | August Capital, Main Sequence Ventures, Tenaya Capital, Burt Sugarman, Michael Meldman, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati | Announced |
| Feb 1, 2012 | $14M Series B | U.S. Venture Partners | August Capital, Main Sequence Ventures, Tenaya Capital, BEN Vandebunt, Burt Sugarman, Christian Lawless, Doug Burgum, Greg Jamison, JIM Gray, Michael Meldman, TIBCO Software, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati | Announced |
| Jun 7, 2011 | $6.4M Venture Round | — | — | Announced |
Wayin is a SaaS platform providing real-time digital marketing technology that enables brands to create interactive experiences for collecting zero- and first-party data from consumers across digital channels.[1][2][3] It serves marketers, brands, media companies, and sports teams by surfacing social trends, user-generated content, and personalized engagements to drive consumer action and marketing results.[1][3] The platform solves the challenge of gathering high-quality, consent-based data in a privacy-focused era, offering over 85 pre-built interactive mechanics—like polls and quizzes—that provide value exchanges for consumer insights, with proven scale collecting over 1.3 billion zero-party data records.[2][3] Founded in 2011 and headquartered in Denver, Colorado, Wayin raised $49.65M before its 2019 acquisition by Cheetah Digital, marking strong growth in the ad tech space.[1][2]
Wayin traces its roots to 2011, initially focusing on real-time digital marketing tools to leverage social trends and user-generated content for brands.[1] A pivotal evolution occurred in 2016 through the merger of two data-led businesses: the original Wayin, founded by Scott McNealy—co-founder of Sun Microsystems—and Engage Sciences, creating a unified self-service SaaS platform for zero- and first-party data collection.[2] McNealy's tech pedigree from Sun brought credibility, especially after joining as CEO in 2015 amid post-dot-com recovery efforts.[1] Early traction came from partnerships with brands and sports teams, culminating in the 2019 acquisition by Cheetah Digital (backed by Vector Capital), which integrated Wayin's capabilities into a larger cross-channel marketing suite.[1][2]
Wayin rides the zero-party data wave amid rising privacy regulations like GDPR and cookie deprecation, enabling brands to build direct, trust-based consumer relationships without third-party tracking.[2][3] Its 2019 timing aligned perfectly with the shift to first-party data strategies, bolstered by Cheetah Digital's acquisition, which amplified its reach within enterprise marketing stacks.[1][2] Market forces like ad tech fragmentation and demand for real-time personalization favor Wayin, influencing the ecosystem by setting standards for interactive data capture—evident in its partnerships and billion-scale data collection—that help marketers navigate signal loss in social and digital channels.[1][3]
Post-acquisition, Wayin is positioned to expand within Cheetah Digital's global platform, potentially integrating AI-driven personalization as zero-party data becomes table stakes for compliant marketing.[2][3] Trends like hyper-personalization, Web3 consent models, and omnichannel orchestration will shape its trajectory, with opportunities in emerging channels like AR/VR ads. Its influence may grow by powering more enterprise-scale experiences, reinforcing Wayin's origins in social innovation as a cornerstone for data-driven engagement in a post-privacy world—echoing its founding promise to turn trends into actionable consumer trust.[1][2]
Wayin has raised $63.8M in total across 5 funding rounds.
Wayin's investors include Dave Duffield, Hasso Plattner, Scott McNealy, U.S. Venture Partners, Andreessen Horowitz, August Capital, Greylock, Main Sequence Ventures, Redpoint Ventures, Tenaya Capital, Workday, Burt Sugarman.