Freshplum, business analytics for e-commerce, announces $1.4 million funding
Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup Freshplum came out of stealth mode this morning to announce $1.4 million $1.4 million in seed funding on hand from top Silicon Valley venture capital funds.
The company bills itself as "next-generation business analytics for digital commernce," and is backed by New Enterprise Associates, Greylock Partners, Google Ventures, Charles River Ventures as well as "a number of current and former executives from Facebook, Google, and PayPal."
Some pedigree. And it doesn't stop there, either: the startup was founded by Sam Odio (Facebook, Divvyshot), Michael Yuan and Nick Alexander (Harvard Business School).
Like others in the space, the company says its platform intends to drive companies' sales decisions through data, with the goal of eliminating guesswork and configuration fatigue.
"Selling goods and services online continues to be more art than science," co-founder Sam Odio says. "Eighty-two percent of the companies we talk to price their products on a hunch because they lack the tools necessary to dive deep into the data."
AllThingsD's Mike Isaac has more context:
It’s sort of like what Amazon has for its own operations, but on a much smaller scale. Small to medium-sized outlets that can’t afford robust internal analytics teams like those found at Amazon or Facebook (Odio’s most recent employer) can turn to Freshplum, whose API and analytics console makes it easier for companies to get a better handle on just what’s selling, and how to price items correctly.
The company is already serving more than 10 million API requests a day in a private alpha version shared with "a handful of premier digital commerce providers." A wider alpha will be available late this year.
How much, you ask? It's too early to say. I'm sure the gentlemen at Freshplum have already queried their own system to find that out.