San Francisco early-stage venture capital firm Base10 Partners has led a $US26 million ($38 million) Series A capital raising round for Sydney-founded Okendo which offers a customer review platform for e-commerce brands.
The round was supported by Craft Ventures and Index Ventures. Index led Okendo’s $US5.3 million seed round last year.
Okendo’s platform was launched in 2018 on the Shopify app store, leveraging the emergence of direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands and demand for customer-centric marketing tools.
Since then, the company has opened a US office in Miami which is led by co-founder and chief executive Matt Goodman.
Okendo says it helps merchants attract more customers, increase sales and boost customer value by collecting user generated content such as ratings and reviews and then displaying this material in multi-channel marketing.
Working with Shopify merchants, Okendo has built up a roster of more than 5,000 clients.
Goodman said 90% of online shoppers read reviews before buying which makes reviews essential for generating sales.
He said recent testing had shown that, on average, shoppers interacting with Okendo had a 2.5x higher conversion rate and a 15% higher average order value.
Brands which use Okendo include: Lovisa, Tigerlily, Seafolly, Thermonix, Taft, Sheike and Glue.
Okendo has a staff of 80 split between Australia and the US. The company plans to use the new capital to scale up its marketing, accelerate product development and substantially increase the size of its team.
Base10 managing partner T.J. Nahigian said: “In this era of Shopify enabling major innovation in the retail megatrend, owing and understanding your customers is a huge unlock for any e-commerce brand looking to grow quickly.”
Image: Lovisa is one of the brands using the Okendo platform.