The CDP industry continued to expand in the first half of 2019, according to the latest semi-annual report from the CDP Institute. The industry has reached 96 vendors, 9,026 employees, and $2.4 billion in funding, as seen in the graph below.
The CDP Institute defines a customer data platform as “a packaged software that creates a persistent, unified customer database that is accessible to other systems.”
Therefore, a platform would have to meet each of those three criteria (packaged software, unified customer database, and accessible to other systems) to be classified as a CDP, rather than a CRM, DAM, CMP, etc.
The term “customer data platform” emerged in 2013, and the CDP Institute was formed in 2016. They’ve been making these reports twice per year since January 2017.
CDP industry funding hits “by far the largest amount per period since the report began”
“New funding for the period totaled $317 million, compared with $58 million in the preceding report period,” the report states. “This is by far the largest amount per period since the report began.”
It’s worth noting that just over half the total funding came from Segment, who announced a $175 million Series D round back in April of this year.
At the time of their announcement, Segment CEO and co-founder Peter Reinhardt said:
“CRMs and their associated suites are no longer able to deliver great customer experiences. With the rapid proliferation of new digital tools and customer touchpoints, the global market opportunity for Customer Data Infrastructure is huge. We are excited about this latest milestone, which will allow us to accelerate international growth and help even more businesses across the world put their customers first.”
CDP employment up 71% since last year
In the last 12 months, employment in the CDP industry grew 71%, from 5,384 employees in July 2018 to 9,206 employees in July 2019.
Most of that growth, according to the report, came from the 19 new vendors who joined the field in the last year.
The CDP Institute expects this growth to continue, and has confirmed its projections for the CDP industry to reach $1 billion in revenue by the end of this year.