The global e-commerce market is now worth approximately $3 trillion (approx £2.2 trillion) having experienced steady YoY growth of 15-20% in the last decade. According to new data from IBM’s U.S. Retail Index, the pandemic has accelerated the shift away from physical stores to digital shopping by roughly five years.
Based out of London, Revlifter is an AI-powered technology provider helping brands increase revenue through real-time personalised offers. The UK company is positioning itself to take advantage of a rapid acceleration in the shift to online as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Raised £3.3 million
As a part of the strategy, Revlifter secured a £3.3 million funding in a Series A round led by Gresham House Ventures and Maven Capital Partners. The funding will help RevLifter take advantage of an accelerated shift to online retail due to COVID-19. To date, the company has raised a total of £6.5M in funding over 5 rounds.
Uses AI to achieve advertiser’s goals
Founded by Ryan Kliszat, and Simon Bird, the platform uses AI to understand real-time signals from users onsite behaviour to deliver the right deal to the right customer at the right time, to achieve the advertiser’s goals. It turns deals from tactical, mass discounts that cost the retailer money, into strategic marketing activity that drive incremental revenue
The company has clients including Harvey Nichols, Very, HP, Currys PC World, and The Hut Group, along with telecoms providers AT&T, BT Broadband, and EE. As per the company claims, clients use RevLifter to eradicate the wastage associated with blanket promotions and instead offer real-time, hyper-personalised deals that drive up basket value and encourage higher spending per customer.
Carolina Paradas, Global Senior Affiliate & CLO Manager at Harvey Nichols, said: “RevLifter had the sensitive touch we needed. We were able to significantly increase our conversion rate and average order value across our targeted growth markets, including the United States, Japan, and Korea. We are so thrilled with the success that we are rolling out further plans for the partnership.”
Co-founder and CEO Simon Bird said: “We’re delighted to welcome both Gresham House Ventures and Maven Capital Partners into the RevLifter fold. Knowing we have their belief is an amazing validation of our vision. We’ll be using the investment to capitalise on our leadership position in this market and continue our rapid expansion into new markets. The US currently accounts for about 60% of our revenues but there’s a growing demand that we’re primed to meet across EMEA and APAC in particular.”
Co-founder and Chief Product Officer Ryan Kliszat said: “We’re already in retail and telecoms but we see an opportunity to break into new industries such as finance and utilities. Our clients tell us they love the ongoing improvements we’ve made to our product and capability this year. This fundraise will help us accelerate plans for further new features, including a product that will bring our game-changing AI deal personalisation treatment to a ‘basket abandonment emails’ market in need of a shake-up. We’ll also bring innovation to push notifications, product recommendations, and deal personalisation across the whole e-commerce journey. There’ll be more we can reveal at a later date.”
Investment Director at Maven Capital Partners, Alexander Sleigh, said: “We’re delighted to support RevLifter at this exciting stage of its journey. The surge in online that we’re all seeing as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, brings with it increasing customer demands and expectations. The quality of personalised experience that brands need to deliver to customers has never been more important.”
Investment Director at Gresham House Ventures, Thomas Makey, said: “We’re really excited to be teaming up with RevLifter, which we believe is perfectly positioned to capitalise on the most pressing trends and challenges facing online retailers. The management team at Revlifter has been focused and strategic in evolving its personalised deals platform and, we believe that it now has a fantastic opportunity to solidify its position as an important partner for any consumer-facing e-commerce business.”