Vancouver-based ShopVision Technologies has secured a $4.1 million USD ($5.6 million CAD) seed round for its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered market research platform.
The all-equity round was led by Brightspark Ventures, with participation from BDC Capital, Rhino Ventures, and undisclosed strategic investors from “category-defining brands.” BDC seed venture fund partner Dinar Ahmed and Brightspark partner Andrew Lugsdin have joined ShopVision’s founding team on the board, CEO Harry Chemko told BetaKit in an email. The early-stage company will use the funding to scale its go-to-market efforts, product development, and data collection.
Until now, ShopVision was funded by its founders, their friends and family, and grants.
ShopVision was founded in 2024 by Chemko, chief product officer Peter Sheldon, and CTO Jeff Neil, but didn’t publicly launch until April. Until now, ShopVision was funded by its founders, with some support from friends and family, as well as research grants from the Industrial Research Assistance Program, Chemko said.
ShopVision helps e-commerce merchants automate their competitive analysis with an AI agent that plugs into first-party and third-party data sources. The agent keeps track of competitors’ promotional campaigns, analyzes how a merchant’s past campaigns performed, and identifies optimal timing for new campaigns. All that automated analysis is then consolidated into weekly summaries for leadership and relevant teams.
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Chemko previously founded Vancouver e-commerce startup Elastic Path and led it for two decades. Elastic Path has raised about $150 million to date and acquired international e-commerce companies while Chemko was at the helm. Chemko ceded the CEO role to become Elastic Path’s chief strategy officer in 2020. He will remain in that position while leading ShopVision. Chemko told BetaKit that ShopVision is a completely separate entity from Elastic Path.
Sheldon and Neil respectively bring experience as the former vice-president of strategy at software giant Adobe and CTO of fashion tech company Vivrelle.
ShopVision has courted several dozen brands and retailers as customers since launching five months ago, Chemko said. He added that the platform is currently only available in North America, but expects to expand to other geographies soon.
Feature image courtesy ShopVision.