The advent of the digital advertising ecosystem has created endless possibilities for companies to disseminate their message to the right consumer at the right time. However, this ever-expanding market does not come without challenges. Creative production teams must be cognizant that their assets are following all compliance protocols, especially in highly-regulated industries like the automotive or pharmaceutical sector. Constellation is an enterprise marketing technology platform that empowers brands to create scalable digital campaigns seamlessly using machine learning while remaining compliant with all industry-specific and general regulations. Traditionally, the creative development gets bogged down in regulatory and compliance hurdles along each step of the way, stifling creativity and timeliness. The platform ensures that brands are not only following all relevant laws, regulations, and standards set forth but also maintaining all brand guidelines while generating hundreds of customizable and targeted ad creatives quickly. Constellation has built a core focus on the automotive industry with clients like Volkswagen and Jaguar Land Rover but has expanded to address the needs of other highly-regulated industries like pharmaceuticals working with Biohaven Pharmaceuticals, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, and Sanofi.
AlleyWatch caught up with Constellation Cofounder and CEO Diana Lee to learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, recent round of funding, and much, much more…
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
Funded by Newlight Partners, we received a $15M equity investment to support our rapid growth and expansion into new industries.
Tell us about the product or service that Constellation offers.
Constellation is a SaaS enterprise with the world’s only creative marketing technology designed for highly regulated industries. Our end-to-end compliance solution features built-in verticalized engines for dynamic content development. Our clients include Fortune 500 companies in automotive, pharmaceuticals and banking.
What inspired the start of Constellation?
We were working with Fortune 500 companies that struggled to make creative content in a fast and efficient way. Sometimes regulatory teams would take over a month approving creative units and there was a need to generate permutations of original content in a fast and efficient way by using machine learning. We integrate creative development with compliance complexities for highly regulated industries.
How is Constellation different?
Agencies are being disintermediated. Many CMOs have brought services in-house and clients are in-house for cost, speed, and greater control. Unlike traditional advertising companies, Constellation is able to produce creative that is hyper-personalized at scale while simultaneously maintaining compliance. Companies are able to seamlessly and quickly produce the creative through our proprietary platform – all of which regulatory and compliance teams are a part of that process.
Manual creative approval processes are of the past and the new way of generating and deploying creative should incorporate machine learning.
What market does Constellation target and how big is it?
We target highly regulated industries such as pharmaceuticals, automotive, insurance, financial services, and spirits. Globally, over $5B is estimated to be spent on digital advertising in pharmaceuticals, automotive and financial technology in 2024 and close to $500B across all industries in 2024.
What’s your business model?
Constellation is a SaaS enterprise technology with the world’s only creative marketing technology designed for highly regulated industries. Our end-to-end compliance solution features built-in verticalized engines for dynamic content development.
Constellation’s platform allows marketers to create ads for various platforms including Meta, Programmatic, Performance Max, and Display. Features include automatic generation of hundreds of customizable ads based on customer demographics and geographies. It reduces burdens of compliance.
How are you preparing for a potential economic slowdown?
Our clients are looking for economic and speed-to-market efficiencies. We are a subscription model that is disrupting the billable agency hours model. We are able to do compliant asset creation that is far less expensive than using a traditional agency. We are also able to do the asset creation and regulatory approvals within a tenth of the time of the traditional agency model.
What was the funding process like?
It is such a privilege to be able to work with Newlight Partners. As said by Adam Stulberger, Partner at Newlight Partners, “Constellation exemplifies Newlight’s thematic approach and the type of business in which they seek to invest – an established company with exceptional leadership, a unique customer value proposition, and numerous growth opportunities. As Constellation’s first institutional capital partner, we are excited to support the business through its next phase of growth as it continues to innovate and scale.”
What are the biggest challenges that you faced while raising capital?
Finding a great partner is always important when it comes to raising external capital and ensuring long-term alignment. This was an important focus for Constellation in 2022 and we’re excited about partnering with the Newlight team. On the macro side, 2022 was a challenging fundraising environment due to inflationary concerns, stock market volatility, and an overall anxiety about recessionary trends. These dynamics caused investors in the US and globally to pull back on making new investments; despite this headwind, Newlight was able to get across the finish line in December 2022.
Finding a great partner is always important when it comes to raising external capital and ensuring long-term alignment. This was an important focus for Constellation in 2022 and we’re excited about partnering with the Newlight team. On the macro side, 2022 was a challenging fundraising environment due to inflationary concerns, stock market volatility, and an overall anxiety about recessionary trends. These dynamics caused investors in the US and globally to pull back on making new investments; despite this headwind, Newlight was able to get across the finish line in December 2022.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
Constellation’s SaaS technology is the world’s only creative marketing tech for highly regulated industries. Highly compliant companies are not using one automated platform to create, review, distribute, and report. Constellation is the first-of-its-kind end-to-end marketing solution.
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
With this funding, Constellation will continue to grow and verticalize our offerings. Constellation recently brought on former Pfizer executive Melissa Gunn and former Takumi executive Derek Wiggins to help navigate our exponential growth and expand into new sectors.
What advice can you offer companies in New York that do not have a fresh injection of capital in the bank?
The number one thing companies have to do is conserve cash or they won’t survive the economic downturn. They need to cut resources to ride out the economic storm.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
We are continuing to expand into the life sciences and financial industries.
Where’s the best place to hold a team offsite in the city?
The best place to hold a team offsite is actually just a couple of hours away at the Woodbury Commons, a luxury outlet mall. Every year, we rent buses and drive our team up to the Woodbury Commons for a companywide shopping trip. Aside from being a fun activity to do, it’s a great bonding experience for all the teams.
