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Amid Rapid Growth, Origin Expands Team; Launches New Enterprise Division

Origin Media

Origin, a pioneering media, and technology company reshaping how brands engage and activate consumers on the largest screen at home, announced today the launch of a new enterprise division and the appointment of two strategic hires. Molly McArdle joins as Head of Enterprise Partnerships and Sahil Shah as Head of Programmatic. Since its inception two years ago, Origin has grown from a self-funded $30K bootstrapped start-up to a thriving business generating more than $13 million in revenue during the pandemic. Leaning into their unprecedented growth, the company is now expanding its reach with a new enterprise division that works with partners such as independent streaming services and publishers to augment their ad sales capabilities by offering Origin’s first to market Native CTV solutions directly to their clients. “We are thrilled to welcome Molly and Sahil to the team at a time when we are rapidly growing,” said Fred Godfrey, CEO and Co-founder at Origin. “Their deep expertise will play a pivotal role in elevating Origin’s position as the market leaders in Native CTV advertising by extending our solutions through enterprise-level partnerships as well as innovative new products, each of which will help our clients unlock new revenue streams and stand out in this fiercely competitive market.” Leading Origin’s new enterprise division, McArdle will be responsible for growing the company’s existing partnerships and building new relationships with key strategic partners. She has extensive experience overseeing the development of personalized solutions for partners and strategic network accounts that deliver a tangible return on investment. She previously served as Account Director at STAQ until its acquisition by Operative Media. She was a key player in the acquisition and following, was promoted to Senior Commercial Executive of Enterprise Sales. McArdle will report directly to Fred Godfrey. “Origin’s vision in CTV advertising is second to none. As we continue to see CTV evolve, Origin is at the forefront when it comes to disrupting the status quo powered by a feverish belief that they can address the growing needs of a rampant market,” said McArdle. “Origin’s philosophy to put their customers first will be a core value in my new role and I look forward to intensifying the enterprise partnerships they already have and to forging new opportunities in places they have yet to conquer.” In 2021, advertisers are expected to spend an additional $2.37 billion on programmatic CTV video ads compared to 2019 presenting a major opportunity for Origin to grow its market share. Shah joins Origin from Purch and Future plc where he served as Head of Programmatic Sales in North America and Director of Global Programmatic Sales, respectively. With more than a decade of experience in technology publishing, he has a proven track record of leveraging programmatic teams to drive company-wide revenue growth. Based in New York, Shah will lead the company’s programmatic efforts across product, operations, and sales, reporting to Origin Co-founder and Chief Business Officer, Stephen Strong. “Origin is building something that offers a completely new spin on CTV at a time when the industry has barely brushed the pinnacle of its growth potential in today’s global digital economy,” commented Shah. “I’m excited to be a part of this moment and look forward to helping Origin build out a first-to-market product that has a meaningful impact on the industry, as well as grow their programmatic revenue amid a growing number of TV viewers today continuing to move toward CTV devices.” For more information on Origin, please visit www.originmedia.tv. About Origin Origin is a pioneering media and technology company whose first to market native advertising solutions are reshaping how brands engage and activate consumers on Connected TV. The original architects of ‘‘Native CTV’, Origin’s in-house animation studio produces engaging native content for advertisers that is designed to capture the attention of a room, immerse the audience in active dialogue and elevate the connection they feel towards a brand. Origin was founded by media veterans Fred Godfrey and Stephen Strong, whose success has been shaped by a relentless commitment to infuriating the status quo. Learn more at www.originmedia.tv. Contact Details Kite Hill PR Kerriann Becker origin@kitehillpr.com

September 08, 2021 09:08 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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BEE Set to Take Stage at SaaStr 2021 Annual Conference to Address Industry Trend of “build-vs-buy”

BEE

BEE, a business unit of Growens and leading digital content design platform, announced today they will be speaking at this year's SaaStr Annual event, the world’s largest non-vendor B2B software conference. BEE has been an active participant of SaaStr sponsored events and this year Mariela Towers, Head of Marketing and Jules Costa, Content Manager will take the stage to talk about "Behind the Scenes of a Build-vs-Buy Decision.” SaaStr is known to be the most inclusive event in SaaS. In the past three years, 60% of speakers were women or multicultural speakers, and they strive to continue this growth through future events. BEE echoes the sentiment of diversity and inclusion and will be represented by two of their own women leaders to speak at the conference. For the first time, Towers and Costa will bring their diverse backgrounds in business and content strategy to the SaaStr conference by joining key industry conversations. "We are looking forward to the event and the opportunity to safely engage and network with fellow SaaStrs in person this year,” said Towers. “We are excited to bring a relevant conversation about leveraging third-party technology for faster speed to market, and of course can't deny that the team at BEE is really proud to participate in the movement to balance out what diversity should look like in technology.” "SaaS products continue to play a huge role in the future of work. We've seen remote collaboration become expected and, at times, crucial to sustaining business,” states Costa. “The 'make or buy' decision is one piece of getting these products to market faster." For more information on this upcoming event check out saastrannual2021.com. BEE can be found at booth 323 where the team will also be highlighting BEE Plugin, the company's embeddable email, landing page and popup builder that is integrated into over 600+ different SaaS applications worldwide. About BEE: BEE provides no-code design tools that empower everyone to quickly create content that resonates. BEE’s visual builders are used to design emails, landing pages, one-page sites, and more. They deliver fantastic design flexibility and a great user experience, combining granular control on design elements with handy features like editing content directly in mobile view. BEE is building on its vision to help democratize content design, with millions of monthly users in over 20 languages and from over 150 countries. BEE’s design tools are available online at beefree.io and embedded in 600+ SaaS applications. BEE will present on Tuesday, September 28 at 12pm PST/3pm EST. Contact Details Jules Costa communications@beefree.io Company Website https://beefree.io/

September 08, 2021 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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Pencil announces free creative AI dashboard for brands to learn from their past Facebook ads

Pencil

Creative AI company Pencil has today released a free creative AI dashboard and also an Instant Predictive Audit (IPA) which can analyse thousands of Facebook and Instagram ads to generate new ideas and predictions for ecommerce and SME advertisers. Pencil is the only automated system which generates unlimited video ads that then learn to improve and drive more sales over time. The new creative dashboard will be free forever, and automatically analyses a Facebook account, and then groups all of a brand’s previous ads into “winners” and “losers.” Winners are ads that are performing above a threshold (e.g. the average, top 10%, or top 25%) on a particular metric, and they can be used to generate new strong ideas, with a “More like this” feature. Losing ads can be switched out and improved in a few clicks using the “Replace” feature, and there’s also indicators to identify “Fatiguing” and “Scaling” ideas. “The new creative AI dashboard is going to significantly improve the way we build and run ads on Facebook and Instagram,” said Tye DeGrange, founder of Round Barn Labs. “We already know that creative quality and variety is driving more than 50% of our performance for us on Facebook, but identifying winners and losers with the speed and scale we want is often difficult. We estimate this tool will change the game for our team, improving our vision, speed, creativity, and results.” Pencil’s customers will be able to access the new IPA which will audit thousands of ads to provide “Day Zero” new ideas and predictions, enabling brands to use their best creative to make their next creative. Previously, users needed to run sufficient Pencil ads and media investment before gathering enough data to see any predictions, which might take several weeks. Now with the IPA, Pencil already knows on Day Zero what has worked before and what didn’t, and users get predictions built on all their past Facebook ad tests. Pencil also revealed that 3 out of 4 Pencil users successfully find ad “winners” which outperform their average performance benchmarks. On average these winning ads beat their baselines by 79% (ROAS, return on advertising spend) and 48% (CPA, cost per acquisition). The new data was published in the Q3’2021 edition of “Creative AI Works”, based on an analysis of over 650 Pencil ads that ran between November 2020 and July 2021. The report also found that teams which ran 10 or more Pencil ads were typically able to find “winners” that performed 100% higher than ROAS baselines and 50% lower than CPA baselines. The full report can be downloaded here. Will Hanschell, CEO and co-founder of Pencil commented: “These results and these new features mean that we and our users are already further ahead with Creative AI than where we expected to be during 2021. We didn’t want to just build a product, we wanted to create a whole new system, to help solve this $100 billion video advertising industry problem. We now have an effective, integrated SaaS system tested and launched, and a way for any small business to get started and get value immediately.” Finally, these new features would not be possible without the outstanding partnership and performance of CLIP. IPA utilizes OpenAI's CLIP neural network, which is trained across 400 million image-language data points to learn the presence of concepts in the images automatically. Earlier in the year, Pencil upgraded from OpenAI’s GPT-2 to GPT-3 to drive its ad copy generation, and saw its success rates jump from ~65% to over 95%. About Pencil Pencil is a Creative AI company on a mission to generate unexpected ideas that get results. Pencil generates ads that learn to drive sales, delivering the return on ad spend that helps brands scale their businesses. Pencil was founded in 2018 with a team from Google, Facebook and Uber and is backed by Sequoia Capital India, Wavemaker Partners, Singapore Innovate and Entrepreneur First. Further information visit: www.trypencil.com Contact Details Bilal Mahmood +44 7714 007257 b.mahmood@stockwoodstrategy.com

September 02, 2021 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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Spotlight Sports Group Acquires Alarm Sports Network, Leading US Fantasy Sports Operator

Spotlight Sports Group

Spotlight Sports Group announced today the acquisition of FA Media LLC (Alarm Sports Network), a leading fantasy sports technology and media company, in an all-cash transaction. Spotlight Sports Group is a world-leading technology, content and media company specializing in sports betting and fantasy sports. Alarm Sports Network provides white-label proprietary technology solutions and free-to-play contests for blue-chip media and sports content providers. It also develops engaging content for its popular consumer sports platforms: Fantasy Alarm, DFS Alarm and Wager Alarm. The addition of these services to Spotlight Sports Group creates an all-encompassing sports betting and fantasy sports offering. Spotlight Sports Group is recognized for its sports betting expertise on direct-to-consumer platforms like Pickswise, one of the fastest-growing sports betting content providers in North America, and Racing Post in the UK and Ireland. Spotlight Sports Group also supplies sports betting technology, tooling and actionable content to drive user engagement for the world’s leading sportsbooks and media owners. “This acquisition immediately accelerates our growth across North America with the addition of proprietary technology and authoritative, scalable content. We are delighted to be joining forces with a vastly experienced management team steeped in fantasy sports and sports betting expertise. ASN will also broaden our business-to-business footprint through partnerships with Yahoo, FTN Network, SiriusXM and others,” said Alan Byrne, CEO of Spotlight Sports Group. “This is a transformative deal for Spotlight Sports Group. It allows us to combine the skills and expertise which have fueled our digital growth in the UK and Ireland with the talent and flair of the team at ASN in order to have a significant impact on the all-important US market.” Key highlights from the deal include: Spotlight Sports Group will retain the expertise of the Alarm Sports Network team: co-founders Dan and Al Williams, former NBC executive and Fantasy Sports & Gaming Association Hall-Of-Famer Rick Wolf and former FOX Sports & EA Sports executive Ed Bunnell. Alarm Sports Network, who developed the technology to help drive user engagement and revenue at sports media companies like FTN Network, Yahoo, Bally Sports and The Nation Network, will fold into Spotlight Sports Group’s brand. ASN brands Fantasy Alarm, Wager Alarm, DFS Alarm and Fantasy Rundown join Pickwise in a new look direct-to-consumer brand roster for sports bettors and fantasy players across North America. Spotlight Sports Group will integrate the ASN team, growing the Group’s staff to more than 500 people. “This deal creates a powerhouse sports betting and fantasy sports business, proven to drive revenue with engagement-led solutions. Using our unique mix of product technology, expert content and authoritative brands, we will continue to deepen our relationships with our partners to help them grow and monetize their audiences,” said Rick Wolf, President Alarm Sports Network. “We are tremendously excited to become part of Spotlight Sports Group, working together to help solve challenges and drive innovation for our partners in the fast-evolving sports media and affiliate landscape,” added Dan Williams, Co-Founder. For more information on Spotlight Sports Group please visit: https://www.spotlightsportsgroup.com/en_us/ ABOUT SPOTLIGHT SPORTS GROUP Spotlight Sports Group (owned by Exponent Private Equity) is a leading technology, content and media business specializing in sports betting. Evolved from the Racing Post Group, Spotlight Sports Group engages millions of people directly through Racing Post, Pickswise, Free Super Tips and myracing. The company also has decades of experience in powering growth and conversion for the world’s biggest sportsbooks and media companies, delivering best-in-class technology and expert scalable content experiences in more than 70 languages. ABOUT THE ALARM SPORTS NETWORK Alarm Sports Network’s (ASN) mission is to create products, services and content that entertain and inform so that sports fans can learn, play and win whether it is fantasy sports or sports betting. This has been achieved through three digital platforms: Fantasy Alarm, Wager Alarm and DFS Alarm. ASN platforms cover all 10 major US sports (including Esports) offering a mix of free and premium content. The business-to-business division supplies media companies with a range of tools from data modelled projections for player performance to full turnkey white-label platforms and free-to-play contests. Contact Details Michael Adorno +1 212-931-6143 madorno@hotpaperlantern.com Company Website https://www.spotlightsportsgroup.com/en_us/

September 01, 2021 08:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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BEE Elevates Its Freemium with the Addition of Landing Page Design Capabilities

BEE

BEE, a business unit of Growens and leading digital content design platform, announced today that users will now have access to designing landing pages with its freemium product BEE Free. Since its inception in 2014, people have been able to click on ‘Start Designing’ in beefree.io to immediately start creating emails from scratch or select ready-to-use professional templates. With over 30,000 unique users per month for BEE’s freemium design tool, it’s clear BEE is making progress to achieve its vision of democratizing content design for everyone. BEE”s free editor for email was intended to be easy-to-use as it does not require any HTML coding skills. Now, this same frictionless, no-code experience will be replicated for people that need to create landing pages. The move to unlock landing page design capabilities for BEE Free includes over 100 ready-to-use landing page templates as well as a start from scratch option. The use of these tools on beefree.io is completely free. Users who want to experience more advanced design features can sign up for a 15-day trial of BEE Pro, the company's full feature, no-code design suite for email and landing pages. This comes as another meaningful achievement for the team at BEE as they recently announced 10K paid subscribers for its BEE Pro design suite. The addition of landing page design on beefree.io means that now everyone can produce mobile-ready, high-converting, end-to-end campaigns — a sweet move to further support the company's vision to democratize content design. “Introducing landing pages to BEE Free changes the way users create their multi-content campaigns. Having combined communications composed of related emails and landing pages can be extremely effective and powerful for our customers’ strategy,” said Elena Loatelli, Product Marketing Specialist at BEE. “We are especially proud of this release because it aligns with our goal to democratize content design, and now all users can rely on the solid, fast and easy design tools with this new content in BEE Free.” About BEE BEE provides no-code design tools that empower everyone to quickly create content that resonates. BEE’s visual builders are used to design emails, landing pages, one-page sites, and more. They deliver fantastic design flexibility and a great user experience, combining granular control on design elements with handy features like editing content directly in mobile view. BEE is building on its vision to help democratize content design, with millions of monthly users in over 20 languages and from over 150 countries. BEE’s design tools are available online at beefree.io and embedded in 600+ SaaS applications. Contact Details Jules Costa communications@beefree.io Company Website https://beefree.io/

August 30, 2021 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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BEE adds a new visual builder to its Plugin product line

BEE

BEE, a business unit of Growens, releases a new visual builder to its Plugin product line. The embeddable popup builder offers no-code, drag & drop design capabilities for marketers to easily create popups for their digital campaigns. Popup Builder is the third digital content type that BEE has introduced. The over 600 SaaS applications that have adopted BEE Plugin can now provide their users with a single design interface for emails, landing pages and popups. Popups are becoming increasingly necessary for businesses to compete and drive customer acquisition, retention and conversion rates. Businesses that implement popups as part of their digital marketing strategy benefit from growing email lists, staying in touch with customers, increasing social media following, and driving online sales. BEE Plugin’s new popup builder can be fully embedded into any SaaS application in under 30 days. The result is a new product offer or feature that users immediately adopt due to an intuitive interface. “We are very excited about the launch of this new builder because we now provide, with a single subscription, the tools that cover the main design needs for creating online campaigns. Our clients can now provide an excellent and consistent content design experience for creating emails, landing pages, and popups. Their users no longer have to learn 3 different tools and can reuse their content across the 3 builders. It also makes life easier for our customers who don’t need to worry about maintaining multiple tools and the associated costs.” Guillermo Padilla, Head of Product “More and more SaaS applications embed BEE Plugin because it helps them deliver a fantastic user experience to their customers, while going to market much faster than if they developed their own content design tools. We are really thrilled to see adoption across many industries, including 40% of the companies in Gartner’s 2021 Quadrant for Multichannel Marketing Platforms.” said Massimo Arrigoni, CEO at BEE. About BEE: BEE provides no-code design tools that empower everyone to quickly create content that resonates. BEE’s visual builders are used to design emails, landing pages, one-page sites, and more. They deliver fantastic design flexibility and a great user experience, combining granular control on design elements with handy features like editing content directly in mobile view. BEE is building on its vision to help democratize content design, with over 4.5 million monthly sessions of its tools in over 150 countries, across 600+ applications. Contact Details Angelina Kaliszak angelina@kitehillpr.com Company Website https://beefree.io/

August 25, 2021 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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Juicy Juice Celebrates the Return of the Lunchbox this Back-to-School Season

YourUpdateTV

It’s finally here – the day parents and kids have been yearning for: a fresh start to a new school year and new beginnings. Parents and kids will be celebrating a back-to-school season unlike any other and experiencing a spectrum of emotions along with it. So, what can parents do to navigate both the excitement and nervousness of this back-to-school season and set their kids and themselves up for success? To help parents prepare themselves and their littles ones for the return to school, Juicy Juice is partnering with host of Disney Family Sundays on Disney+, child psychologist and founder of Yay Day Paper Co., Amber Kemp-Gerstel. Crafting expert Amber created custom-designed lunchbox notes for kids to discover at lunchtime to provide a connection to mom and dad. In addition, her tips and suggestions will help alleviate any back-to-school jitters kids may be feeling. The notes, along with other helpful advice from Amber on how to ease the transition of back to school, will be available on Juicy Juice’s website. Additionally, Juicy Juice is hosting a 100% YAY! Sweepstakes to celebrate mom, dad and the caretakers who were handling and coordinating all things virtually this past school year and get them excited and ready for back to school. Each day, ten $100 gift cards will be given away! Through September 22, parents can visit JuicyJuice.com and follow the instructions to complete and submit the online entry form. Entrants can also enter this sweepstakes every day receive a bonus entry for playing the 100% YAY! Lunchbox Game for more chances to win. Visit www.Juicyjuice.com/yay to enter and read the full rules. About YourUpdateTV: YourUpdateTV is a social media video portal for organizations to share their content. It includes separate channels for Health and Wellness, Lifestyle, Media and Entertainment, Money and Finance, Social Responsibility, Sports and Technology. Contact Details YourUpdateTV +1 212-736-2727 yourupdatetv@gmail.com

August 23, 2021 11:01 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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Mental Health Advocate and Everything Athletes Founder Kim Carducci Releases Debut Book, The I of the Tiger

Everything Athletes

“I was nothing and no one without sports,” writes Kimberly Carducci in her debut book, The I of the Tiger: The Athlete Identity and Remedying Sport’s Greatest Conflicts. Carducci continues, “For the first time since I was five years old, it felt as if gravity, the commonality that kept all beings rooted on Earth, suddenly stopped and I had no idea what was up, down, or sideways. So much free time and nothing to do. It was paralyzing. It almost drowned me.” Fortunately, Carducci was able to rise above her darkest moments after retiring as a D1 swimmer at the University of North Carolina but many top sports competitors don’t. In The I of the Tiger, Carducci uncovers the many layers, fears, insecurities, and complexities the athlete identity produces. She offers insights on how this identity negatively impacts mental health and the ways athletes can navigate pivotal transitions. “When life hits us hardest, it’s important to understand the biological and psychological effects of pain to shed light on how we can best process our emotions.” offers Carducci. “With this understanding, we can move past the shock of a situation, grow stronger with a refreshed identity, and adopt a framework for life that encourages strength, clarity, and light.” Kim Carducci’s deftly written book combines heartfelt personal anecdotes with references to several historical and prominent athlete figures in our world today, such as Tonya Harding and Michael Phelps aimed at discovering: How competition influences athletes and their mental health Why athletes build an inflated sense of ego, based on physical capabilities How injury and retirement deflate athlete’s sense of worth Daily implications of being a fierce competitor Daily guiding principles for athletes on their transition journey The art of letting go of things athletes once leaned on that wasn’t sturdy enough to support them beyond sports The I of the Tiger: The Athlete Identity and Remedying Sport’s Greatest Conflicts is available September 21, 2021, everywhere books are sold. Learn more at www.everythingathletes.com. About Kimberly Carducci Kimberly is a former DI swimmer, mental health advocate, podcaster, and Founder of Everything Athletes. In her athletic career, Kim struggled with depression and has since dedicated herself to helping other athletes cope with the realities of the sports world. Kim founded Everything Athletes, an online refuge for competitors, where she offers the resources and tools needed to thrive in sports. Kim resides in Atlanta, GA. Learn More About Kim & Everything Athletes: Instagram: @everythingathletesdotcom Website: EverythingAthletes.com Facebook: Everything Athletes Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/introduction-to-kim-carducci/id1541556960?i=1000499841965 Contact Details Eric Nemeth nemeth@ericpr.com Company Website https://www.everythingathletes.com/

August 19, 2021 09:03 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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BEE Hits 10K Subscribers for BEE Pro, Company Poised to Accelerate Growth in H2

BEE

BEE, a business unit of Growens and premier digital content design platform, has announced it recently reached a milestone of 10K paid subscribers for its BEE Pro product. BEE Pro is the fastest, no-code email and landing page design suite on the market, appealing to freelancers, teams and agencies that need to design digital content faster and more independently. BEE is poised to grow substantially over the next three years, focusing on expansion within its user base and acquisitions. According to Adobe, there will be 4.7 billion people designing digital content by 2023. As the volume of digital content increases, marketers and content creators look for new ways to produce it quickly and efficiently. BEE Pro exists precisely to satisfy that growing demand, giving everyone the tools they need to design beautiful, mobile-ready, high-converting campaigns without compromising brand identity or team bandwidth. “This growth is a direct result of our product-led model. Since day one, people have been able to click on ‘Start designing’ on beefree.io and create emails and landing pages in two clicks. As they experience the value of the free product, many opt to stay, and that’s how we passed 10,000 paying customers last month.” said Massimo Arrigoni, CEO of BEE and a big believer in product-led growth for many years. “We’re certainly not stopping here: we continue to invest into the product, with smart features like Mobile Design Mode - which allows people to design directly in mobile view - better collaboration features like commenting and real-time co-editing, and higher productivity features, like being able to go from email to landing page (and vice versa) in just a few clicks. People love BEE Pro (NPS is a very high 56 so far this year), and the addressable market of those that need no-code, fast, easy design tools is huge: so we truly believe that we’re just getting started.” BEE as a tool can help facilitate collaboration on newsletters, transactional emails, product launch pages, custom home pages for newsletters, and more. Individuals in all types of work environments can design everything in one place helping to keep projects easily organized and ready to be used anywhere. To learn more about BEE Pro please visit our website at beefree.io. About BEE: BEE provides no-code design tools that empower everyone to quickly create content that resonates. BEE’s visual builders are used to design emails, landing pages, one-page sites and more. They deliver fantastic design flexibility and a great user experience, combining granular control on design elements with handy features like editing content directly in mobile view. BEE is building on its vision to help democratize content design, with millions of monthly users in over 20 languages and from over 150 countries. BEE’s design tools are available online at beefree.io and embedded in 600+ SaaS applications. Contact Details Angelina Kaliszak angelina@kitehillpr.com Company Website https://beefree.io/

August 18, 2021 09:00 AM Eastern Daylight Time

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