Unbxd's $12.5 million funding round points to greater interest in AI-powered ecommerce

Unbxd, a startup that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to personalise discovery for online shoppers while mining deep user insights for its clients, the ecommerce companies, has raised $12.5 million (around Rs 80 crore) in series C funding.

The California-based company, which has operations in Bengaluru, has found backing from some marquee investors, reflecting the level of interest in applying AI to ecommerce. The investment was led by Eight Roads Ventures, the proprietary investment arm of Fidelity International Limited. Existing investors IDG Ventures, Inventus Capital Partners and Nirvana Ventures also joined in.

Kris Gopalakrishnan, co-founder of Indian IT giant Infosys, also invested in the round. Avendus Capital was the exclusive financial advisor, Unbxd announced in a press release on Monday.

The startup expects to use the money to develop its AI-powered platform further. Unbxd says it can help online retailers “capture the 15-40 percent in revenue that is lost due to a poor product discovery experience”.

“Traditional rule-based ecommerce technology is hard for retailers to manage while also delivering a poor experience for their shoppers. With a better AI solution in place, retailers are more competitive because shoppers can more easily buy what they seek,” Pavan Sondur, co-founder and CEO of Unbxd, said in the release.

Among Sondur’s 120-plus US online commerce customers are Ashley HomeStore, Express, FreshDirect, Rue21 and ibSupply. Unbxd supports more than 1.5 billion shopper interactions a month, according to the company’s press release.
 
“Unbxd has a great product-market fit, and now is the right time to accelerate its go-to-market strategy. Ecommerce product discovery tools represent a multi-billion-dollar opportunity globally and Unbxd is well positioned to emerge as a leader in the space,” Raj Dugar, a managing partner at Eight Roads Ventures, said in the release.

The funds raised will be invested in enhancing Unbxd’s proprietary intelligence engine, which today captures and processes more than 50 shopper data signals, to facilitate personalised search, navigation and product recommendations on ecommerce sites. Unbxd will also open new offices, to be closer to its customers in Chicago and New York.