Afterpay-backed Touch Ventures leads $5.5 million series A in retail experience platform preezie

Online shopping experience platform preezie has raised $5.5 million in a Series A.

The round was led by ASX-listed, Afterpay-backed Touch Ventures and Steve Baxter’s investment syndicate, TEN13.

Preezie will allocate the cash to team and product growth as well as international expansion.

The company previously raised $575,000 in a seed round 18 months ago.

With the world moving increasingly to online shopping, the four-year-old Melbourne startup has developed an online solution to the traditional in-store sales assistant for e-commerce, helping deliver a more personalised and guided shopping experience in order to boost sales conversions.

The venture was co-founded by Michael Tutek, Luke Milkovic and Quoc Nguyen in 2017.

Tutek, preezie’s CEO, said they believes all brands have an unheard voice online and all shoppers deserve to be treated individually.

“The preezie platform utilises guided selling, data driven insights and behavioural science to empower over 700,000 individualised shopping experiences every month,” he said.

“Preezie has been working with brands like Baby Bunting, Shaver shop, Adore Beauty and Guitar Center, and has seen rapid revenue growth of over 500% and more than doubled the team in the past 12 months.”

Now they’re looking to triple the team over the next 12 months. And with existing retail partners across the world including Australia, New Zealand, US, UK and Canada, preezie is also looking to further scale its footprint with a focus on the US and UK over the next 18 months.

“With roles from developers, product managers, sales and customer success. We are looking for people hungry to grow, learn and be on the ground floor of what we know can be the next Australian unicorn,” Tutek said.

Preezie came to the attention of Touch Ventures and TEN13 after they witnessed impressive traction in the retail space following the Skalata Ventures seed program in 2019.

Tutek said they were incredibly excited to partner with two leading VC firms.

“Our mission is to individualise the online shopping experiences. We are currently doing that with just over 100 merchants globally,” he said.

“I cannot be more excited for the opportunity to unlock the ecosystems of our investors and help tens of thousands of merchants bring the in-store shopping experience online.”

Touch Ventures CEO Hein Vogel said they were impressed by the team at preezie and their ability to add significant value to merchants through the platform.

“We believe there is an opportunity to bring the in-store experience to merchant websites and preezie enables that through a simple integration,” he said.

TEN13 partner said the business reflected the shifting expectations of online shoppers, which have increased over time.

“They want and expect better digital shopping and increasingly, personalised experiences. preezie is helping e- commerce customers compete globally by raising the bar and delivering on these expectations,” he said