Statflo, a data platform aimed at wireless retailers, announced that it has raised a $2.4 million seed round.
The round was led by Round 13 Capital, the venture capital firm led by Bruce Croxon. Croxon is also co-host on The Disruptors, of which BetaKit is a production partner.
Venture capitalists from Toronto, Waterloo, and Silicon Valley also participated, including Extreme Venture Partners, MaRS IAF, Globalive Capital, Rising Tide Fund, Garage Capital, Hedgewood and TIO Networks. Statflo said it would use the funding to accelerate its growth. “We’re using the funding to grow our ‘smart engine’ which basically helps retailers focus on the right customers at the right time with the right offers,” said Kevin Gervais, CEO and co-founder of Statflo. “Secondly, we’re launching a new way for retailers to be a trusted advisor to customers and have more proactive conversations via mobile.”
At the same time, Statflo also announced a partnership with iQmetrix, a SaaS-based platform that provides retail management solutions to wireless retailers. The company said that iQmetrix operates the majority of wireless retail stores in North America, yet many of these stores manage their data manually through Excel spreadsheets and CSV files. Gervais said that With Statflo, iQmetrix can automate reconciliation between POS and carriers, triggering actions on specific accounts to build loyalty and drive sales, and deliver reports that analyze data.
“The bigger opportunity we see is when you solve the data problems within this market, we can build a better set of tools to drive new experiences within retail — like chatting with customers via SMS and making personalized product/service recommendations via mobile,” said Gervais. “Basically, we’re building a true omnichannel experience, which to date has been impossible because of all the data silos.”
Gervais and his co-founder John Chapman, a retired telecom executive with 40 years of corporate IT experience, founded Statflo in 2012 after Chapman had been trying to find a way to solve data pain points. He approached Gervais, a serial entrepreneur with experience in marketing and launching over 200 businesses, to help build the technical side of the platform.
“Once we did this, we realized that this data doesn’t just belong in a report, it needs to be used to drive actions. Once we did this, we grew our revenues 500 percent within 12 months,” Gervais said. “We have very different approaches, but that’s what I think helped us succeed. It was the perfect marriage of experience and expertise.”
Last year, Statflo was named one of the startups in the CIX Top 20.