Possible IPO signal: Marketo CEO Phil Fernandez joins Gigya’s board of directors

In yet another sign that Gigya’s roots in social login and gamification have led it to become a “connected consumer management suite” that helps brands understand and market to digital consumers, Marketo CEO Phil Fernandez has joined Gigya’s board of directors.

But it also could be a sign the late-stage startup is prepping for an IPO.

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Marketo is, of course, a marketing automation system for enterprise brands, and in fact Gigya has been a Marketo customer for years, Gigya CEO Patrick Salyer told me via email.

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The move is strategic for both companies.

“Marketo has a foothold on marketing automation and is gaining traction in B2C marketing,” Salyer said. “Likewise, Gigya is becoming the system of record for B2C consumer data management, so it makes sense for the two companies to stay closely aligned.”

Gigya’s release announcing the move specifically mentioned Fernandez leading Marketo to “a successful IPO in 2013,” which seems significant given that Gigya has added over 100 employees in the past eight months, has raised $70 million in an alphabet-soup A-through-E series of funding rounds, and is in the 95th percentile of startups in terms of growth, according to private company data resource Mattermark.

In other words, an IPO is likely the next stage in the company’s evolution.

According to Gigya, Fernandez will act as a “trusted advisor to Gigya and help inform decisions regarding corporate strategy, product development, go-to-market plans, and client services.” In a guest post on Gigya’s blog, Fernandez said that his “vision for Marketo has always been focused on the next frontier for marketing, and I want to closely align myself with companies that share that vision.”

Beyond the IPO prepping, if indeed that’s happening, Fernandez’ perspective looks to be very helpful to Gigya, as the company’s social login and other solutions provide masses of data that can be used very effectively by brands and enterprise within marketing automation systems.

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“For example, if a consumer registers or logs in to a retail site through Gigya’s Social Login or Registration-as-a-Service, we can store that data, which is accessed through strict user permissions, in our Identity Storage database,” Salyer said via email. “In turn, we can help the business identity valuable user segments with our new Consumer Insights product and then pass those user segments to a marketing automation platform like Marketo for hyper-targeted email marketing.”

Fernandez joins other board members Patrick Salyer (CEO), Eyal Magen (CSO and cofounder), Navin Chadda (Managing Partner, Mayfield Fund), Michael Eisenberg (General Partner, Benchmark Capital), and Jake Winebaum (founder of Business.com and Brighter.com).