STOCKHOLM--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Depict.ai, which provides AI-based product recommendations for any e-commerce store without needing any historical sales data, today announced that it has raised $17M in Series A investment led by Tiger Global, with participation from Initialized Capital, EQT Ventures, Y Combinator and a team of angels. The Series A investment comes a year after Depict.ai raised $2.8M in seed funding led by Initialized Capital, with participation from EQT Ventures, Y Combinator, Northzone. The new capital will be used to keep up with demand and enable Depict.ai’s rapidly growing team to bring its recommendation engine to the rest of the e-commerce world, starting with Europe and the US. It will also be used to further invest in the product.
Founded in 2019, by then 17-year-old Oliver Edholm (CEO) and Anton Osika (CTO), Depict.ai is the leading solution in Scandinavia, and increases sales by 4-6%.
The giants within e-commerce have been able to build huge in-house teams that leverage AI to deliver clear bottom-line impact. For instance, Amazon is reported to earn 35% of its revenue from their recommendation engine (McKinsey report). However, most e-commerce stores don’t have the technical capabilities, nor the large amount of sales data to make existing recommendation systems work. To counteract this imbalance, Depict.ai has developed AI technology that is available to every retailer. In a nutshell, the solution understands all of a retailer’s products, and is deployed as a plug and play solution. Depict.ai utilizes the most recent advances in Deep Learning, training neural networks to understand product images and information to an unprecedented extent. Depict.ai’s engine is unique in that it doesn't require any user behavior data to deliver product recommendations of the highest quality.
“Up until now, the benefits of AI have been reserved for the e-commerce tech giants, and we're here to change that. We’re starting by giving every e-commerce store the AI technology they need to deliver world-class product recommendations. Our ambition is to bring retailers all the AI infrastructure they need for product discovery, so they can focus on delighting their customers with great products instead of worrying about technical complexities," says Y-combinator alumnus and 19-year-old Depict.ai founder and CEO Oliver Edholm.
“Depict.ai's AI-based product recommendation platform, is completely novel because it does not require historical sales data, enables online retailers of any size to deliver high-quality recommendations, a key driver of increased revenues. We believe Depict.ai’s technology is poised to be a leader in this space, and we are excited to partner with Oliver and his team as they continue to expand into new markets," said John Curtius, Partner, Tiger Global.
“At EQT Ventures we generally observe two trends in e-commerce innovation. Entrepreneurs either build tools to “arm the rebels” or create services for incumbents to keep up with the speed of more nimble players. When meeting with Oliver and his team we immediately bought his vision of providing top-tier product recommendation for the masses. Multiple members on our team have experienced the problem first-hand as founders, the Depict.ai technology is both a direct enabler of revenue growth and a time-saver from a development capacity standpoint. We’re excited to continue backing them on their journey from seed to Series A and beyond as they build one of the future giants in the e-commerce infrastructure space,” said Rania Belkahia, Partner at EQT Ventures.
Depict.ai has a long list of angel investors, including Fredrik Hjelm, CEO & Co-founder of Voi, Johannes Schildt, CEO & Co-founder of Kry, Carl Rivera, CEO & Co-founder of Tictail, Erik Bernhardsson, creator of the Spotify recommendation engine, Northzone, Nicolas Dessaigne, CEO & Co-founder of Algolia, Vidit Aatrey, CEO & Co-founder of Meesho, Joshua Browder, CEO & Founder of DoNotPay, Finbarr Taylor, CEO & Co-founder of Shogun.
About Depict.ai
Depict.ai, founded in 2019 by (then) 17-year-old Oliver Edholm and Anton Osika (former Sana Labs), who built a software tool that provides Amazon-quality product recommendations for any e-commerce store. The solution uses an algorithm that can increase overall e-commerce revenue by 4-6% for any store without needing any sales data at all. www.depict.ai
About Tiger Global
Tiger Global Management is an investment firm focused on private and public companies in the internet, software, and financial technology sectors. Since 2001, Tiger Global has invested in hundreds of companies, across more than 30 countries, at stages ranging from Series A to pre- and post-IPO. The firm aims to partner with dynamic entrepreneurs operating market-leading companies in its core focus areas. Tiger Global's investments have included JD.com, UiPath, Stripe, Databricks, Bytedance, Snowflake, Facebook, Alibaba, Procore, Chime, Blend, Peloton, Nubank, Attentive, LinkedIn, Flipkart, and Toast.
About Initialized
Initialized Capital is an early-stage venture firm that invests with conviction before it's obvious. We're a diverse group of founders, builders, and operators who understand how hard it is to build a company. We back visionaries using software to make civilization better and support them through product-market fit and beyond. We're early believers in companies like Coinbase, Instacart, Flexport, and Cruise. Initialized’s portfolio—which spans over six core funds —is worth close to $200 billion in market value with 22+ companies valued at $1 billion or more and 5 valued over $10 billion.
About EQT Ventures
EQT Ventures is a multi-stage VC fund that partners with the most ambitious and boldest founders in Europe and the US. The fund is based in Luxembourg and has investment advisors stationed in Stockholm, Amsterdam, London, San Francisco, Berlin and Paris. Fuelled by some of Europe’s most experienced company builders and scalers, EQT Ventures helps the next generation of entrepreneurs with the capital and hands-on support needed to build global winners. For further information please visit https://eqtventures.com