IDG Communications, which acquired four data and MarTech firms over the past 18 months, rebranded as Foundry (Foundryco.com).

‘’We set out to deliver on a strategy that reinvents our business for a new era in technology marketing where data and MarTech are engineered to work seamlessly together, powered by our global ecosystem of editorial brands,” said Kumaran Ramanathan, President of the newly named Foundry.  “However, to pivot, to reinvent you sometimes have to turn away from the very things that previously defined you and the long-standing equity in our name, synonymous as one of the world’s biggest media companies ultimately limits our ambition and ability to be identified as a marketing technology powerhouse.’’

Earlier this month, IDG acquired Marketing-as-a-Service (MaaS) platform Selling Simplified.   The Denver-based vendor provides lead generation products, data services, and analytics.  It also maintains a database of 160 million B2B records “specific to tech industry purchase intent.”  The acquisition added contact and account-level AI-powered lead generation capabilities to IDG’s expanding suite of intent-based marketing technologies.  IDG is moving quickly into the B2B MarTech space, having recently acquired ABM Platform Triblio, visitor intelligence vendor KickFire, and intent platform LeadSift.

“We meet with tech companies, marketers, sellers, and agencies every day and in every market around the world,” said Jason Tenenbown, Chief Strategy Officer of Foundry.  “What we’ve found is a growing disconnect between sales pipelines and marketing funnels.  Our strategy has been to leverage our proprietary data with proprietary marketing technologies to bridge that gap, creating an outcomes-based set of products and services that satisfy the needs of our clients.”

IDG Communications was founded in 1964.  It remains a wholly-owned subsidiary of IDG which is best known for its 200+ technology publications, including CIO, ChannelWorld, Computerworld, CSO, Network World, PCWorld, and TechHive.  Its digital publications provide a stream of second-party intent data “with access to more than 200 million individuals and global behavioral insights that are authenticated, timely and, contextually relevant.”

“No one else has first-party media relationships integrated with marketing technologies to help create an ecosystem that resolves customer pain points,” added Ramanathan.  “With the rebrand of IDG as Foundry, we are establishing ourselves as a company that generates and innovates with data.  While the new brand marks the completion of a major milestone in our corporate transformation, we will not stop innovating and building upon our recent success.” In a corporate branding video, Foundry emphasized that “those operating at the intersection of media and technology will have the edge.”  Furthermore, “MarTech without data simply does not work” and “campaigns without technology are limited in their ability to provide measurable return on investment” and are “hard to scale with real-world impact.”