DIY NFTs
Greetings, Pulse Subscribers!
We’ve got a heap of Startup Deals hot off the presses and reads you won’t want to miss, but first, the agenda:
Bringing order to the chaos of e-commerce
DIY NFTs
What is “hype commerce”?
Financial well-being for hourly employees
2022’s largest startups and private companies
We’re burning daylight here, so let’s get going!
Startup Deals
P2C Platform | As the world of e-commerce continues to expand and evolve, there are more consumer channels for retailers to use to reach customers than ever before. However, managing these channels has become complex, to say the least. Productsup offers the first product-to-consumer (PTC) platform that helps companies optimize their e-commerce presence and reduce single-channel reliance. Instead of using numerous piecemeal solutions, Productsup is equipped to manage the current proliferation of shopping channels and experiences, and it allows users to manage different aspects of e-commerce marketing and sales from a single place. Without having to worry about single channels or regions, Productsup helps retailers scale globally and cover different use cases like feed management, seller and vendor onboarding, and product content syndication. With over 900 customers, including IKEA, Sephora, Redbubble, and ALDI, the Productsup platform processes over two trillion products each month. The company claims to have grown by an Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) of 60% in the last 12 months and recently raised $70 million in Series B funding.
NFT Minting and Sales | NFTs (non-fungible-tokens) have made a lot of noise recently, mostly in the art world, but their potential for retail, especially as Web3 takes shape, is far more interesting. The idea of owning something digital may seem silly when it’s a picture of a monkey, but what if that digital something offers loyal customers exclusive deals or access to special events? Novel, a New York-based startup, helps retailers, brands, and content creators mint and sell their own NFTs, with no coding required. As each NFT is unique, Novel gives retailers the ability to offer something more than a loyalty card or a rewards program - it gives them the ability to let customers own a piece of the digital world that they support. With some retailers using Novel NFTs to take pre-orders or establish loyalty programs, and others exploring using them as a way to test new products or sell limited-edition products to token holders, Novel is expanding what NFTs can be for retail. Novel recently raised $6 million in seed funding led by Lerer Hippeau.
Product Launch Management | Few things can be more infuriating for a retailer than a botched product launch, especially when it comes to high-demand or limited edition products - sites crash, payment becomes chaotic, or scammers and bots clear out the stock leading to widespread backlash from real customers. EQL, a Melbourne, Australia-based startup, allows retailers to address these very problems with its platform. EQL’s focus is fairness when it comes to high-demand release events, which it calls “hype commerce.” EQL’s platform helps manage the chaos of these events with infrastructure that can withstand traffic bursts, secure technology to manage entries and process payments, and multistep security verification and back-end technology to fend off scammers and bots so that every real consumer has an equal opportunity to acquire these high-demand items. Giving brands more control of their limited release product drops and supporting more meaningful interactions with fans, EQL has been involved in more than 1,000 product launches for companies like Footlocker, Sullivans Cove Distillery, and Crocs. Just a year old, EQL recently raised $25 million in Series A funding led by Insight Partners and AirTree Ventures.
E-commerce Payments | For international small to midsize businesses, traditional payment and logistic providers can be an expensive hassle. Often, they’re unable to accept local payment methods and charge a premium for lower volumes. Montonio aims to change that with its one-stop-shop checkout solution for e-commerce merchants. For consumers, Montonio gives them better buy-now-pay-later options with the ability to compare offers from multiple lenders in real-time, so they can select the payment amount, loan period, or interest amount that works best for them. Montonio claims this selection reduces consumer credit costs by up to 50% and results in higher conversions for the merchant. For merchants, Montonio offers a payment solution based on open banking, which it claims can cut costs by up to 100x when compared to traditional mechanisms such as Visa or Mastercard. In addition, Montonio’s platform allows merchants to automatically generate, edit, and print shipping labels without having to ever leave the dashboard. With easy integration and customer-friendly financing, Montonio recently raised €11 million (~$11.9 million) in a Series A funding round led by Index Ventures.
Hourly Workers Financial App | Demand for hourly workers continues to be high around the world as the Great Resignation continues. Unfortunately, despite the high demand, these same workers often find it challenging to save money, which can lead to low job security and high turnover. To combat this trend, Wagestream offers employers a platform to boost the financial well-being of their hourly employees, which leads to happier, better, longer-tenured employees. Wagestream can give workers faster liquidity when they need it instead of having to wait two weeks or a month for their paycheck to come through. In addition, the platform gives workers the ability to use their money in different ways, with features to invest small amounts into stocks, controls to save money incrementally, and even options to consult with a financial coach. With over 12,000 jobs listed on Indeed.com advertising Wagestream as a benefit, the platform is seen as a sweetener when recruiting staff, a way to empower employees, and a benefit to help reduce employee churn. Over 300 employers across the US, UK, Spain, and Australia, including Burger King, Pizza Hut, Bupa, and the UK’s National Health Service, use Wagestream, which recently passed 1 million users and raised $175 million in Series C funding.
Essential Industry Reads
Future, from a16z, recently released its third annual Marketplace 100, a yearly ranking of the largest consumer-facing marketplace startups and private companies. Assembled by Partner Olivia Moore, this year’s list offers an insightful overview of where markets stand after two years of unprecedented shake-ups. With a look at the emergence of new markets and businesses, sectors rife with opportunity, and the possible future of the marketplace model among many other topics, this read is as essential as it gets.
The way retailers and brands sell to consumers has evolved at a breakneck pace over the past several years due in part to e-commerce. One sector that’s seen some of the biggest growth is social shopping via social platforms like Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. This is especially true for Gen Z consumers. In an eye-opening article on RetailDive, Tatiana Walk-Morris highlights a recent survey commissioned by Snapchat, which says 92% of Gen Z want to use augmented reality (AR) tools for e-commerce and notes how Snapchat is leaning into that expectation. The article also dives into how AR is being used with great success, what Gen Z wants from retailers, and what the future of social e-commerce may hold. Brief and data-packed, this read offers a look into what might capture Gen Z's attention in the future.
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