Kantar Snaps Up Italian AI Specialist MindIT

Kantar has announced the acquisition of Bologna, Italy-based AI specialist MindIT, for an undisclosed sum.

MindIT is a spin-out from Bologna University, and its machine learning solutions have formed part of Kantar's Trade Optimisation Revenue Management offer since 2018, helping clients to hone their portfolio, in-store and investment strategies; harmonise their datasets which provide a single source of truth and drive common ways of working across functions; gain insights into assortment, pricing and promotions; and model and optimize their strategy. The firm's development team will now join Kantar's Trade Optimisation SaaS business, further accelerating its development of an integrated, end-to-end Revenue Growth Management (RGM) platform.

Cedric Guyot, Executive MD Trade Optimisation at Kantar comments: 'We know that RGM is a top priority for CPG/FMCG companies; with many currently going through the painful journey to digitalise their revenue management processes. Kantar's vision for a world-leading end-to-end RGM platform is being co-designed with our top clients. The integration of MindIT's capabilities is a crucial step in delivering against this vision and gives Kantar full control of the R&D roadmap for the Trade Optimisation portfolio of solutions'. MindIT CEO Alessio Bonfietti comments: 'Since our company's founding in 2017, we have been focused on applying AI to some of the consumer goods industry's biggest challenges. In joining Kantar's Trade Optimisation team, one of the world's largest Revenue Management SaaS vendors, we get to apply our vision at scale and help consumer goods manufacturers wherever they are in their transformation journey'.

The buy follows Kantar's recent sale of its Reputation division to software investor Symphony Technology Group - the division is now merged into the buyer's data science company Onclusive.

Web site: www.kantar.com .