Ghost, which operates a B2B marketplace for excess goods, has raised $30 million in a new Series B round of funding.
One year ago, Josh Kaplan and Dee Murthy used $20 million in Series A funding to create Ghost’s members-only marketplace to enable brands and merchants covertly buy, sell, and export their excess inventory. It is driven by a data engine that improves product discovery and boosts category conversion, including apparel, cosmetics, shoes, and home goods.
The company’s personnel expanded, increasing its membership base to over 1,000 people. While its year-over-year gross merchandise value run rate surged more than ten times, the newly added inventory to the market rose by 500%.
According to Kaplan of TechCrunch, the company also created a new Chrome plugin that enables customers to quickly determine whether a product they are looking at is available on Ghost and, if not, submit a direct request to the business.
In an interview, Murthy stated, “We’ve spent a ton of time educating brands and retailers that data and technology can make their process and their lives easier.” “The macro trends in the economy have been a tailwind for us, and people are open to trying something new because the conventional approaches haven’t worked for many of them,” the author says. This company’s timing was excellent, given the state of the retail industry.
The Series B investment, which concluded in July, was led by Cathay Innovation and included previous backers Union Square Ventures, Equal Ventures, and Eniac Ventures. The new investment brings Ghost’s total venture capital funding to $68 million, increasing its valuation, though the co-CEOs declined to provide a precise figure. Simon Wu, a partner of Cathay, will join the board of directors of Ghost due to the investment.
Kaplan and Murthy intend to utilize the money to extend their business into the United States, Europe, and Asia and hire people for various product, engineering, and design positions. Additionally, they aim to improve their offering, particularly in automation and customization.
Our strategy will be, as Kaplan put it: “Most of our product teams have a history in personalization and in harnessing artificial intelligence to create individualized experiences for every user. The ideal composition for sales gross margin will be optimized using AI, which will be utilized to produce customized dashboards for each buyer.
[Source of Information : Techcrunch.com]
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