The seed funding round is led by Accel Partners
Investment round also saw participation from Hauz Khas Ventures, Creator Collective Capital, and other prominent individual and institutional investors
Capital to be used to rapidly scale operations of business and expand presence in Indian and US markets
Bengaluru, NFAPost: RetainIQ, a leading ecommerce marketing company, announced that it has raised $2.3 million (Rs 17.2 crores) in a seed round of funding led by venture capital firm Accel Partners.
The funding round also saw the participation of VC firm Hauz Khas Ventures, London-based private equity firm Creator Collective Capital, Unicommerce founders Ankit Pruthi, Karun Singla, and Vibhu Garg, Upgrad cofounder Mayank Kumar, Ally.io founder Vetri Vellore, Brightchamps founder Ravi Bhushan Kumar, and Gromo founder Ankit Khandelwal, among others.
RetainIQ, which was launched in June 2021, will use the raised capital to rapidly scale its operations, accelerate product development, and expand its core teams across engineering, product, sales, marketing and operations.
Founded just 6 months back by serial entrepreneurs Sitakanta Ray, Arpit Gupta and Sulakshan Kumar, RetainIQ is a software platform which enables ecommerce stores and brands globally to convert and retain their customers by leveraging communication automation on Email, Whatsapp, SMS, Push and On-site.
By empowering brands to deliver personalized experiences across all customer touchpoints from a single, integrated digital marketing dashboard, RetainIQ solves the issues of conversion and retention faced by many e-commerce platforms. In this way, RetainIQ is heading a paradigm shift in the way brands and customers communicate.
RetainIQ Cofounder Arpit Gupta said the global retail industry is currently experiencing a generational shift.
“The future always lay in ecommerce, and the pandemic only accelerated this shift. Shopify has offered online retailers a safe space to grow, and in the process has become a huge entity – worth over USD 100 billion and harbouring multiple unicorns within its own ecosystem,” said RetainIQ Cofounder Arpit Gupta.
RetainIQ Cofounder Arpit Gupta said despite all this, typical ecommerce conversion rates hover between 1 to 3%. “With increasing ad costs, focus on improving conversions and retention becomes all the more important. That’s why the services offered by RetainIQ are so integral to e-commerce platforms,” said RetainIQ Cofounder Arpit Gupta.
RetainIQ’s employees have played a critical role in this transformation, and have driven the company’s rapid growth over the last year. Their connection to the business has only been strengthened by an ESOP programme comparable to a founder’s equity. This has allowed RetainIQ to create value for all its stakeholders, both internal and external, and given every employee the chance to share in the future growth and success of the business.
Accel Partners India Partner Subrata Mitra said as acquisition costs continue to grow for ecommerce brands, customer retention is coming into prominence.
“We’re really excited to back RetainIQ to solve the retention challenge that we think can lead to a massive opportunity. We believe their team of repeat founders have the right background and expertise to address this problem,” said Subrata Mitra.
In addition to funding, both earlier and new investors are positioned to offer RetainIQ guidance and advice on a number of fronts, from market and product strategy to critical industry connections. The coming months will see RetainIQ deploy this funding round to further evolve its product, upscale its offerings, and expand its presence across the Indian and US markets.
About RetainIQ:
RetainIQ is a software platform that enables ecommerce stores & brands globally to convert and retain their customers by leveraging communication automation on Email, Whatsapp, SMS, Push and On-site.
It helps to deliver personalized experiences across all customer touchpoints from a single, integrated digital marketing dashboard. We enable brands to segment and send personalized messages powered by AI to their customers at scale. RetainIQ was founded with a vision to bring a paradigm shift in the way brands communicate and sell to their customers by making it more personal and natural.
RetainIQ is backed by Accel, one of the top VCs in India and is co-founded by ex-entrepreneurs and product leaders who have built leading products in the ecommerce domain.
