- Repeat aims to make consumer packaged goods (CPG) customers more loyal by sending personalized reminders.
- The company raised $1.5 million in seed funding from Harlem Capital, Techstars and Mucker Capital.
- The two co-founders met at a Venice startup and were planning to get married in April until COVID-19 happened.
The good news for ecommerce companies is that the pandemic has driven U.S. consumers online. Up to half say they buy household supplies with a click, according to McKinsey & Company, but 70% of buyers never return to a brand for another purchase.
Repeat, formerly known as PRZM, aims to change that and make customers more loyal by figuring out their unique consumption habits. The company uses the data to remind shoppers with email nudges, it is time to restock. "Hi Anna. Are you ready for another face wash?" reads one such reminder. When customers go back to the site the items they "need" will be waiting for them in their cart.
<p>"We help brands turn customers into repeat customers," said co-founder and CEO Kim Stiefel. "We're essentially removing the friction from the replenish experience, allowing brands to unlock more repeat revenue."</p><p>Repeat announced Wednesday it has raised $1.5 million in seed funding in a round led by Harlem Capital. Existing investors Techstars, Act One Ventures and Mucker Capital returned while Break Trail Ventures, Vamos Ventures and Wedbush Ventures also came on board.</p><p>Repeat's business has been booming due to the accelerated shift to ecommerce. "We were already seeing consumers come online, but with COVID it dramatically changed," said Stiefel. Case in point: She says a toilet paper brand that is a client saw a 3000x increase in conversions.</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<a href="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzU2NTA3Ny9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNTk3NjE3N30.h9TREdBZlFs7N44NMki-wiZakADKSQbCsyjeKYzwpOY/img.jpg?width=980" target="_blank"><img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzU2NTA3Ny9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNTk3NjE3N30.h9TREdBZlFs7N44NMki-wiZakADKSQbCsyjeKYzwpOY/img.jpg?width=980" id="ad83e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="2f894185e42482b6f9e7f4a74879bc67" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image"></a>
<small class="image-media media-caption" placeholder="Add Photo Caption...">Stiefel and her co-founder Sarah Wissel met in 2015 while the two were colleagues at Vytmn, a short-lived Venice startup.</small>
</p><p>Stiefel and her co-founder Sarah Wissel met in 2015 while the two were colleagues at Vytmn, a short-lived Venice startup. It soon ran out of money, but the two started dating as well as hatching an idea for a new company that would be a subscription brand. "There was nobody else I wanted to do it with," said Wissel.<br></p><p>But like many startups, they pivoted. "During the process of building a brand we discovered subscribing to products is not a great experience," said Stiefel. The two decided to focus on using their own data to help other consumer packaged goods companies retain customers.</p><p>Stiefel says their skills complement each other since she is good at strategy, sales and bringing in revenue while Wissel is more analytic and focused on the product. "There's no power struggle," Stiefel said. "We're big fans of each other."</p><ul class="ee-ul"></ul><p>The co-founders were planning to get married in April until courthouses closed. "They are now offering marriages on Zoom and so I think we're going to do that," said Stiefel. </p>
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Outer, the direct-to-consumer outdoor furniture brand that uses backyards as showrooms, raised $4.3 million in a seed round led by Mucker Capital. The two-year-old Santa Monica based company has seen business boom during the pandemic as retail stores shut down and online orders surged. Suburbanites looking for a stay-cation plucked up their eco-friendly sectionals as consumers spent more time at home.
"We went from tens of thousands of dollars in monthly revenue to millions of dollars in monthly revenue," said co-founder Jiake Liu. "In April we hit profitability."
<p>The closure of retail has given the company an opening and the rise of Airbnb has made consumers more comfortable going into strangers' homes.</p><p><a href="https://liveouter.com/" target="_blank">Outer</a> has tapped into the shared economy with a network of 120 showrooms in customers' backyards. The company pays its partners $50 a visit and says it has a waiting list of 6,000 applicants.</p><p>"We are catering to this new consumer who is so used to online shopping, but that doesn't take away the fact that people still need to touch see and feel a lot of products and specifically around furniture," he said. "People just want to sit in a sofa before investing $1,000."</p><p>The pandemic has brought in new opportunities. </p><p>Outer's low-slung sectionals range from $2,000 to $8,000, and are supposed to appeal to Restoration Hardware and Pottery Barn shoppers. Liu and co-founder Terry Lin, a former designer at Pottery Barn describe the design as timeless. </p><p><br/></p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzQwMDE5OC9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MDc4NzQ3NX0.OJaT801Ph_DihQTOV5Nvp-GRu8WKXD7dvZyWU47epSg/image.png?width=980" id="077db" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="047b9ed2c197fa9845b43b50f293e84a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />
</p><p><br/></p><p>The products are manufactured in Liu's family-owned factory outside of Shanghai. The family, which has built furniture for retailers for years, shifted their production to source recycled materials. The new round of funding will help Outer develop better products and build a line of rugs, tables and other outdoor products. Liu also said he's focused on expanding content around outdoor living. </p><p>If working remotely catches on permanently, he said, it could help his business as people seek to work outside of urban cores to roomier homes with wider outdoor spaces.</p><p>The funding round pulled in some big names in Los Angeles consumer tech, including Honey co-founder George Ruan, GOAT co-founder Eddy Lu and Thrive Market co-founder Nick Green. </p><p>"It's truly an L.A. story and I am really glad about that," Liu said. </p>
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Here are the latest headlines regarding how the novel coronavirus is impacting the Los Angeles startup and tech communities. Sign up for our newsletter and follow dot.LA on Twitter for the latest updates.
- Now Trump weighs in on Elon Musk's defiant move to open a Tesla plant early
- Los Angeles may extend shelter-in-place directives until August, says county health official
- UpKeep raises $36 million Series B as maintenance services startup in demand amid COVID
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UpKeep raises $36 million Series B as maintenance services startup in demand amid COVID
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI3MzY0OS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzNzY2MDM1MX0.QEuZGTPO-hQeDjY0DE8YJ2Kej7fFdACnErWzvCpLvOw/image.jpg?width=980" id="8d2c5" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="8c29b58d478d9ef13655e213ffae8a90" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" />Ryan Chan, UpKeep founder and CEO, says the pandemic has only made UpKeep more attractive as companies put a greater emphasis on cleaning and maintenance.
<p><a href="https://www.onupkeep.com/" target="_blank">UpKeep</a>, a mobile platform that helps companies streamline maintenance requests, announced Tuesday it has raised $36 million in Series B funding. Though it is a difficult time for many companies to fundraise, Ryan Chan, UpKeep founder and CEO, says the pandemic has only made UpKeep more attractive as companies put a greater emphasis on cleaning and maintenance. "I feel fortunate that we are in a space that is growing because of this," Chan told dot.LA. "We were able to raise at very favorable terms, but for a lot of companies it's very difficult to raise right now."</p><p>Chan certainly does not want to be seen as gloating. "We got lucky, but through no fault of our own," he added. Though UpKeep is a Los Angeles company, it turned to New York-based Insight Capital to lead the round. Existing investors Emergence Capital, Battery Ventures, Y Combinator, Mucker Capital, and Fundersclub also participated.</p><p>"COVID-19 is bringing the importance of maintenance into the spotlight, underscoring UpKeep's mission," Deven Parekh, Managing Director at Insight Partners, said in a statement. Upkeep says it saw 206% revenue growth last year and has signed with notable brands including Unilever, Siemens, DHL, Thermo Fisher Scientific, McDonald's and Jet.com.</p>Los Angeles may extend shelter-in-place directives until August, says county health official
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI3MzYzOS9vcmlnaW4ucG5nIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MTE2MDQ3OH0.8SsIb7kUNYHLhSGzsxUiRBMEQd75L0Gnl8bsMRbBJSs/image.png?width=980" id="0fa20" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b03901f7608a01aea8d5d0f02c3d6392" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /> <p>Los Angeles County may extend stay-at-home orders for the next three months, ending sometime in August, according to Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer during a Board of Supervisors meeting on Tuesday. California began loosening stay-at-home rules last week, reopening trails and providing retailers with the ability to sell merchandise through curbside services.</p><p>But Ferrer warned Tuesday that further loosening of the rules will be slow. And that would only change if there was a "dramatic change to the virus and tools at hand." "Our hope is that by using the data, we'd be able to slowly lift restrictions over the next three months," she said, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-12/coronavirus-beaches-reopen-los-angeles-county-move-toward-new-normal?fbclid=IwAR2Z97ITma_M1wvWtL-Ia-IV_3kP7lvjsxnTaEV3VQKukeM_0Z_1tGtAU-U" target="_blank">according to the L.A. Times.</a> But without widely available therapeutic testing for the coronavirus or rapid at-home tests that would allow people to test themselves daily, it seems unlikely that restrictions would be completely eased.</p>Now Trump weighs in on Elon Musk's defiant move to open a Tesla plant early
<img lazy-loadable="true" src="https://dot.la/media-library/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMzI3MzMyNC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYxOTAxOTQ4OX0.KNXEiNukPzNReeVRUf3Ntd-lhTsix_CuVd33Qy4W6gM/image.jpg?width=980" id="b2b27" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="79f2d38d535393cc507416f82c953e35" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" /> <p>This won't come as a surprise: President Trump joined in on the Twitter debate about Elon Musk reopening his Tesla Inc. plant in Fremont, Calif. "California should let Tesla & @elonmusk open the plant, NOW," <a href="http://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/statuses/1260203080076931072" target="_blank">Trump wrote in a tweet Tuesday</a>. "It can be done Fast & Safely!" Musk tweeted on Monday that Tesla would ramp up production at its only U.S. car plant, and risked being arrested after county officials ordered the company to stay closed. The billionaire entrepreneur has slammed California's strict reopening plan, saying his company has a right to manufacture cars and make money.</p><p>Musk wrote in an email to employees, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-05-12/musk-sends-staff-a-thank-you-note-after-threat-to-uproot-tesla?utm_source=google&utm_medium=bd&cmpId=google" target="_blank">in documents reviewed by Bloomberg News</a>: "Just wanted to send you a note of appreciation for working hard to make Tesla successful. It is so cool seeing the factory come back to life and you are making it happen!!" Over the weekend, Musk stated he would move Tesla and his rocket company SpaceX out of the state unless restrictions were lifted, prompting one California lawmaker to <a href="https://dot.la/coronavirus-updates-treasury-secretary-steven-mnuchin-backs-elon-musks-pledge-to-leave-cali-2645970832.html?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1" target="_blank">tweet "F*ck Elon Musk."</a></p>From Your Site Articles
- Elon Musk's Threat to Leave California ›
- California Unemployment Surges After Coronavirus Closure - dot.LA ›
- Coronavirus Updates: California Unemployment Claims at 1.9M ... ›
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