BILDIT CMS Wins Inaugural MACH Alliance FutureMACH Pitch Day

When I first learned about the MACH Alliance’s plan to host a “pitch day,” I thought it would be a fantastic way to expand its mission and grow MACH adoption downstream for startups and scale-ups. 

And why not? Like hackathons and incubator bakeoffs, this could be a great pipeline for learning, exploring, and challenging the ecosystem while supporting the growth of early-stage companies with real products – and real ambition.

I also thought it sounded fun. Kinda like Shark Tank for the modern tech stack. 

Can Mr. Wonderful roll with composable?

OK, OK. So I have it on good authority that Mark Cuban wasn't a judge for this shindig. But the inaugural North American FutureMACH Pitch Day Event had some heavy hitters reviewing the entries – and that alone gave this new experience some decent buzz. 

This new contest is the latest community program offered by the MACH Alliance, the not-for-profit industry body committed to advancing composable enterprise architecture. And in this first battle royale betwixt up-and-coming technologies embracing the composable path, BILDIT CMS took home the crown.

BILDIT, a content management system with a penchant for personalization and a keen focus on e-commerce and retail, brought some spicy innovation to the competition. According to the Alliance's press release, BILDIT took home the crown thanks to its novel use of AI, MACH technology, and external data sources that can deeply personalize shopper experiences. 

From an analyst's point of view, BILDIT is doing some interesting things. If you decide to keep reading, I'll key in on a few of its differentiated attributes, minus the Shark Tank references.

As the winner of the pitch contest, BILDIT will receive some cool prizes, starting with mentorship. This includes access to top-notch brand development resources and even introductions to potential investors, fostering its growth and innovation within the MACH ecosystem.

Full transparency: I’ve served on the MACH Alliance Executive Advisory Board for several years as an objective industry watcher, and I align with the universal architectural trend towards composability. Education has long been a central tenet of the organization, and FutureMACH's pitch day is another example of how the Alliance is committing its knowledge and resources to elevating the ecosystem.

You can read my coverage of “The Composable Conference” live event from 2025 to learn more about how the space is evolving – and how the MACH Alliance is evolving with it.

Helping startups drive composable growth

As a MACH Alliance initiative, FutureMACH was designed to accelerate (you guessed it) the future of MACH. That translates into support for innovative, MACH-aligned startup companies targeting their next phase of growth. This recent competition was open to North American pre-seed, seed, or Series-A startup technology companies with less than $2 million in annual recurring revenue.

The jury panel comprised leaders and luminaries from top global VC firms, providing an elite class of industry knowledge and wisdom. Participants were evaluated based on specific criteria spanning their market opportunity and vision, product differentiation, applications of AI and automation, and alignment with MACH’s innovation principles. 

The jury panel included:

• Gary Benerofe – General partner, Mu Ventures
• Mara Chaben – Principal, Hawke Ventures
• Laura Chau – General partner, Canaan Partners
• Christina Fa – Principal, NewView Capital
• Sam Thompson – Founding partner, Progress Ventures
• Scot Wingo – Co-founder & CEO, ReFiBuy.ai
• Ben Winn – VP content & communities, FirstMark

With deep expertise in emerging tech and market disruption, these judges will provide the cohort of entrants with market-tested guidance, strategic insights, and potential access to influential investment networks.

As the winner, BILDIT will also receive a brand and storytelling workshop provided by The BaaS Company, a long-time resource within the MACH Alliance community. Led by Leoni Janssen, “the pragmatic strategist” who serves on the Alliance’s advisory board, The BaaS Company applies its unique “Branding as a Service” methodology to help elevate brands with tech enablement and an AI focus.

BILDIT will reap the strategic benefits of The BaaS Company’s expertise in branding and corporate communications, helping them automate processes and prepare for greater scale. Additionally, they'll receive a spotlight feature in a MACH Alliance webinar or insights piece, a facilitated introduction to five MACH Alliance member companies of its choosing, and discounted membership into the MACH Alliance Startup ISV category, which is contingent upon qualification. 

Building a new vision for CMS

In my recent conversation with MACH Alliance veteran Kelly Goetsch (who will appear on the next episode of our podcast), we discussed the AI-induced challenges that exist for SaaS companies – and whether the market actually needs another CMS. 

Let’s face it: there are hundreds of solutions out there, from pure headless to DXP component solutions. Is the category sufficiently saturated? Are we all chasing the same 80 percent of commoditized features? How are buyers navigating the confusion?

The real crux of his observation isn’t whether we need another CMS. It’s the reality that we’re swimming in a sea of sameness. As he noted during my interview, it’s not enough to be different – you need to be unique.

This is where a platform like BILDIT is showing real promise. First, it’s bucking the trend by laser-focusing on its niche: e-commerce marketing teams struggling to deliver personalized, targeted campaigns across every channel. This is where a composable posture provides the right foundation for extensibility and multi-modality within BILDIT’s CMS product set.

As one of its founders attested, BILDIT was born out of a deepening frustration with creating targeted, engaging campaigns in a multichannel world. Consumers need seamless solutions, and brands need less code-related friction to deliver them. 

According to BILDIT’s site, the measure for success is elementary, funny, and exceedingly spot on: If customers can't check out while holding a baby, the checkout isn’t good enough.

Part of BILDIT’s value angle is its easy cross-channel content management, underscored by a dynamic product UX. Users can manage content for both web and mobile in a single e-commerce-oriented CMS, with support for email and push notifications. Like you would expect, you can create, edit, schedule, and publish with real-time previewing and shareable links – not just for sites but for mobile apps as well. 

Source: BILDIT website

Like its peers, BILDIT also provides the permissions and governance you would expect from a performant CMS, allowing you to manage multi-user access and modular editing with streamlined approval and deployment inside the CMS. 

It also sports some tricked-out marketing capabilities, letting you create images, banners, recommendations, animations, and customized display configurations. This gives it even more content marketing power than the average CMS tool.

From a composable perspective, BILDIT gives you discrete control over your mobile app or Next.js site, allowing you to build out advanced content types to surface the right content to the right users at the right time with personalization and advanced targeting. 

When it comes to infusing your stack with more power, BILDIT also integrates with some of the top e-commerce platforms, from Shopify to commercetools. This allows brands to expand functionality with best-of-breed products at their disposal. 

BILDIT is also helping to accelerate delivery. Having to wait weeks to launch on mobile or settle for out-of-the-box, generic solutions can translate into lost revenue opportunities. To combat this, BILDIT’s templating solution empowers marketing teams to execute with less complexity. Meanwhile, IT can focus on more advanced customizations within the CMS, allowing marketing teams to quickly deliver – without a deployment.

Another cool thing: BILDIT provides both native mobile app and web storefront features to provide greater speed and simplicity, all geared towards improving conversions. They even have a reference app to provide a workable snapshot of how your finished app will unfold. All in all, they're endeavoring to make the journey easier for customers by enhancing their e-commerce and retail performance with greater control and simplicity.

Pricing

No big shocker, but price is becoming an even bigger factor within composable stacks as uncertainty continues to drag on the market. Both brands and agency partners are looking for smarter ways to reduce cost and complexity with high-performance stacks that deliver optimal results over the long haul. 

I like the general transparency that BILDIT provides with its pricing. It offers a range of packages, from its ground-floor Launch Plan at $500/month, all the way up to a Pro Plan that clocks in at $11,000/month. 

The latter might seem hefty, but give it a good comparison to the TCO with other solutions, and it feels less intimidating. Cost is based on site visits, and each option sweetens the pot with additional features. There’s also an enterprise Scale Plan with custom options; that one requires a phone call. 

You can also get a quick snapshot of how BILDIT stacks up feature-wise to Sanity, Contentstack, and Storyblok. I highly recommend doing your homework on the specific details during your evaluation, particularly around your requirements. 

Why it matters

“BILDIT represents the new wave of MACH-native innovators,” said Kelly Goetsch. “They’ve solved the decades-old personalization problem in e-commerce.”

Knowing just how elusive personalization has been, that seems like a big claim. But Kelly would know. Working on the front lines at commercetools, he’s amassed deep insight into the challenges brands face. His observation might be one of the key points of validation in BILDIT’s favor. 

That said, BILDIT has already established success with notable brands. For example, retail giant Belks saw a significant CVR and AOV lift by moving to BILDIT’s mobile app management platform. 

As for the FutureMACH Pitch Day competition, I think it’s a win. Making space to include new and early-stage ISVs should be a keystone tenet of the MACH community. This is not just an ecosystem for enterprise vendors. By providing critical resources from experienced partners like The BaaS Company – and even access to potential funding – the Alliance is giving these disruptors a vital boost to the next level. 

It's also a win-win-win all around. Participating startups gain vital visibility, even if they don't take home the top prize. VCs and investors get access to potentially disruptive technologies and co-investment plays, giving them a strategic edge. And MACH Alliance members also reap the benefits of expanding their networks, growing partnerships, and expanding their category leadership. 

If you missed out on the North American FutureMACH contest, there's an upcoming UK/Europe competition in Q4 of this year. You can get more details at www.machalliance.org/futuremach.

Get your pitching skills ready. I'll let Mr. Wonderful take it from here. 

Looking for guidance on BILDIT? Talk to an expert.

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