Daasity, secured $15 million in Series A funding

Daasity, an e-commerce analytics and data company, secured $15 million in Series A funding as it continues developing its approach to helping consumer brands better leverage their customer data to make smarter decisions.

VMG Catalyst led the oversubscribed round and was joined by existing investors Cove Fund, Exeter Capital, 1855 Capital, Mooring Ventures, Okapi Venture Capital and Serra Ventures. This gives the company $20.7 million in total funding to date, CEO Dan LeBlanc told TechCrunch via email.

The company’s technology enables brands to pull in all of their data from different places, like Shopify, Amazon, Facebook and Klaviyo, analyze it and push it to marketing channels to optimize customer experiences based on insights from a historical performance.

“There have never been more consumer product brands, and competition among them is at an all-time high,” LeBlanc said. “Brands win by having access to the right data, which leads to faster and more confident decision-making. Data demands have never been higher, and we are investing in the data infrastructure to get brands the access to the data they need.”

Daasity is working with more than 1,600 brands, including Manscaped, Vuori and Caraway Home, and in the past year grew its annual recurring revenue by 300%, while also growing its headcount by 100%.

The new funding will enable further employee growth, with LeBlanc expecting to grow another 160% by the end of 2022. The company is also investing in technology development for better data accessibility, data sources and educational resources for better insight into results. It will also be working on more personalized customer data.

Next up, the company will be heads down in making brands’ data infrastructure modular by allowing the ability to configure components of their data infrastructure — as easily as they select food from a menu, LeBlanc said. It is also adding 35 integrations, like data sources, warehousing options, transformation capabilities and visualization tools.

Brooke Kiley, partner at VMG Catalyst, said in a written statement that the firm was “thrilled to continue our partnership with Dan and the Daasity team as they enter their next phase of growth. We consistently see how difficult it is for brands to act on their data, yet there is a greater need than ever. It is vital to utilize data to succeed in today’s competitive e-commerce environment. Daasity makes data accessible to all brands, empowering them with actionable insights and the ability to enrich their marketing channels with essential customer data.”

Carro (fka VYRL) Raises $20M to Help Brands 'Sell More, Together'

Carro brings on high-profile backers to expand its leading cross-store selling and influencer commerce offerings

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 18, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Carro, the leader in cross-store selling and influencer commerce, announced today the close of its $20 million Series B funding round. The round was led by Alpha Edison, with participation from PayPal Ventures, GC1 Ventures, Corazon Capital, and a number of individuals who use the Carro platform, including high-profile influencers and retail executives. The new funding will be used to grow Carro's team, connect additional ecommerce platforms to its network, and expand its offerings to hundreds of thousands of brands, creators, and influencers. 

Carro's Brand Partnership platform makes it easy for premium stores to sell each other's products without having to purchase any inventory, handle logistics or deal with returns. When a sale occurs, the order is sent directly to the brand that manufactures that product for fulfillment. They ship it as if it were a regular order from within their store. Both brands benefit from added exposure, new customers, and new revenue. Carro also helps brands discover which influencers already love their products from within their social networks and email ecosystems, helping them to build authentic selling relationships. 

"Top brands know that a sale rarely happens alone. When a customer purchases a bike, for example, they will most likely need a helmet, gloves, and other accessories at the same time," said David Perry, CEO of Carro. "Our premium network, data, and expert staff help our brands to not only know what their customers are looking to buy next but also enables them to capture the complete sale in a single checkout. It's a win-win situation for both consumers and our brand partners that we believe is the future of ecommerce."

Carro's brand and influencer network has grown by over 500% in the last year and now serves over 30,000 partners, including Blendjet, Arizona Iced Tea, Chubbies Shorts, Hint, NOBULL, Oatly, ZigZag, Fear of God, Rhone, BruMate, MUDWTR, Truff, Barstool Sports, Harney & Sons, Rachel Zoe, Curateur, Sommer Ray, Olive & Rain, Teddy & Bear, and many more.

"The Carro platform presents a compelling new way for brands to grow, by building direct relationships with customers without spending all of their profits on online advertising," said Nate Redmond, Managing Partner at Alpha Edison. "We've been impressed with the pace at which the Carro team innovates and utilizes deep customer insights to deliver optimal results for customers."

The Carro Brand Partnership along with the flagship Carro Influencer Partnership service can be installed from the Shopify App store. 

About Carro

Carro is an ecommerce application used by over 30,000 top-tier brands, retailers, creators, and influencers to sell more by working together. Its main service connects ecommerce stores together to facilitate cross-store selling, capturing new customers and revenue for customers through collaborative commerce. Carro is backed by Alpha Edison, PayPal Ventures, GC1 Ventures, Corazon Capital, several celebrity customers and other investors. The Carro team is composed of leaders from Google, Facebook, Amazon, HubSpot, Apple, Experian, VISA and Sony. Visit www.getcarro.com for more information.

Cove Fund Announces Third Venture Fund

$30M seed fund will invest in dynamic Southern California ecosystem

IRVINE, Calif., Oct. 26, 2021 / Cove Fund, a seed-stage venture capital firm that invests in the rapidly growing Southern California startup economy, announced the launch of its third fund, Cove Fund III. The fund has completed its initial closing and will make its first investments in the coming months. It is expected to exceed $30M in capital, more than twice the size of Cove Fund II.

Cove Fund is led by a team of three experienced investors and technology executives. Fund Managers Mike Benvenuti and Paul Voois have been with Cove Fund since its inception, and J.C. Ruffalo recently joined as Venture Partner. The Fund uses a unique member engagement model in which the fund's members (investors), most of whom are businesspeople and entrepreneurs themselves, play an active role in deal flow sourcing, due diligence, mentoring and governance of portfolio companies. This model provides the fund with a strong and diverse mix of expertise and network connections, enabling the fund to invest and engage with its portfolio companies across a broad range of industry sectors.

Cove Fund launched in 2015 with its $6M Fund I, followed in 2018 by its $14M Fund II. Cove Fund has invested in more than 40 Southern California startups including notables such as Carlsmed, maker of custom spinal implants that improve surgical outcomes, who recently raised a $10M Series A round led by US Venture Partners; Giga IO, creator of next-generation data center rack-scale architecture for artificial intelligence and high-performance computing solutions, who recently raised a $15M Series B round; and GoSite, developer of cloud-based software designed to help small businesses engage with customers online, who recently raised a $40M Series B round.

Cove Fund invests in early-stage technology and life science companies that demonstrate the potential to address large markets with highly differentiated products and services. The fund typically leads financing rounds in the $1-5M range and has a strong syndication network consisting of angel investors, family offices and venture capital funds that co-invest in its deals, leading to a strong "multiplier effect" on the Fund's capital. For example, Cove Fund II has syndicated over $150M of investments into its portfolio companies to date.

"On behalf of Cove Fund and our partners, we are thrilled to launch Cove Fund III," said Mike Benvenuti, fund co-manager. "The support that we've received from the local community has exceeded all our expectations, and we are excited to start investing in the next generation of great technology companies throughout Southern California."

Learn more about the people, portfolio, and perspectives at Cove Fund and connect on LinkedIn. To seek funding, go to the Contact page or reach out to one of the leadership team on LinkedIn. For more information, email Jeanne Hebert, Executive Director, at jeanne.hebert@covefund.com.

About Cove Fund

Cove Fund is a seed-stage venture capital fund that provides startup funding for promising new Southern California ventures. The fund is headquartered in "The Cove" at UC Irvine Beall Applied Innovation, a centrally located and vibrant gathering place for entrepreneurs, innovators and investors in the Southern California startup ecosystem.

The fund invests in early-stage technology and life science companies that demonstrate the potential to address large markets with highly differentiated products and services, and that can achieve significant value-creating inflection points with their seed funding.

Contact: J.C. Ruffalo, jc.ruffalo@covefund.com

Daasity Announces Multi-Million Dollar Seed Fundraise

SAN DIEGO, March 25, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Daasity, the premiere analytics and data platform that empowers direct-to-consumer and omni-channel brands to understand and leverage their data, announced today the completion of their $3.4m seed round. VMG Catalyst is leading the round, along with new participation from Centre Street Partners and a group of e-commerce founders and operators. These new supporters of Daasity join the impressive list of existing investors including Cove Fund, Exeter Capital, 1855 Capital, Mooring Ventures, Okapi Venture Capital, and Serra Ventures. This new injection of capital will be used to expand the Daasity team, further develop the platform and product, and increase marketing efforts.

"We've seen first-hand how difficult it is for merchants to be truly data-driven when selling across multiple channels and using various SaaS platforms," says Brooke Kiley, Partner at VMG Catalyst. "Daasity enables merchants, both large and small, to quickly take ownership of their data in a cost-effective way. This is increasingly vital for brands as e-commerce continues to grow but also becomes more competitive. We are excited to partner with Dan and the entire Daasity team. We believe their extensive experience in e-commerce analytics will enable them to emerge as a leader in commerce enablement."

Daasity, which launched in 2017 by Dan LeBlanc, Sean Corson and Chris Shimojima, provides easy-to-use prebuilt dashboards based on industry best practices, providing critical insights for inventory management, omnichannel measurement, marketing efficacy, customer segmentation and cohort analysis and more. Connecting with all the top DTC-specific SaaS platforms, Daasity drives unparalleled strategic outcomes, truly revolutionizing how brands leverage data. "This last year has really accelerated the shift towards e-commerce, and brands, whether digitally native or going online for the first time, are being pushed to be data-driven with the need to respond quicker than ever," says Dan LeBlanc, Daasity Co-Founder and CEO. "I have long-admired VMG's approach to the brands they partner with and the approach they take as strategic partners; they not only understand the challenges our customers face, but understand first-hand how Daasity can help. Paired with the investment and support from our other partners, I am extremely excited and bullish about the future."

Some of today's fastest growing and well-established brands rely on Daasity for insightful analytics to improve their performance. "Daasity is a great partner who has enabled us to move quickly to access and build upon our customer and marketing analytics as we have continued to grow," says Jamie Fontana, Senior Director of e-commerce at Vuori. "They are very knowledgeable of the e-commerce and marketing landscape and have been a great resource for our team."

About Daasity: 
Daasity Inc. (Daasity) is one of the fastest growing consumer omni-channel analytics platform brands in the United States enabling merchants of all sizes to centralize, visualize and analyze their data. Daasity has built custom integrations with today's leading technology platforms exclusively for merchants and retailers. In just a few clicks, merchants can easily gain access to their performance in fully customizable, pre-built dashboards to determine how to grow their business. Founded in 2017, Daasity products are engineered to provide merchants with analytics that have traditionally been restricted to data science teams at enterprise companies. Daasity is committed to helping brands grow faster with better insights by providing 50+ integrations, 130+ pre-built reports, and the power to customize their dashboards to suit unique business needs. As of March 2021, Daasity powers the data and analytics for 1,400+ eCommerce stores worldwide. Visit www.daasity.com and follow @daasity and #daasity on Linkedin and Twitter.

About VMG Partners: 
VMG Catalyst is a new $250 million venture fund dedicated to early stage tech-enabled consumer products, services, applications and marketplaces as well as the infrastructure and technology stack that enable these businesses. VMG Catalyst provides Seed, Series A and Series B capital along with consumer subject matter expertise to support high growth companies within this space. Over the past fifteen years, through its VMG Growth fund, VMG Partners has established itself as a trusted partner to founders and co-investors with a history of growing and preparing brands for successful exits. VMG Catalyst utilizes VMG's expertise, access and broad ecosystem to bring a consumer and brand-first mentality to a new generation of tech-enabled companies. For more information about VMG please visit www.vmgpartners.com.