As people do more of their shopping online, getting people to buy once is not enough for marketers. Getting them to stick around is the holy grail.
Former Paypal and Facebook product and data analytics manager Emad Hasan just raised $8 million in Series A funding for his startup Retina, which he says helps brands like Dollar Shave Club and Madison Reed acquire and retain customers.
The round was led by Alpha Intelligence Capital and Vertical Venture Partners. Retina plans to use the funding to boost hiring and expand integrations with companies including Facebook, Google, Shopify, Segment, and Experian. Past investors include Comcast Ventures.
Retina uses artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data analytics to predict customers' lifetime value — the measure of a customer's total worth over the course of their relationship.
It claims to do this with a proprietary algorithm that looks at companies' order history and customer attributes and builds lookalike audiences to help them boost sales.
Below is Retina's fundraising deck.
Founded in 2017, Retina is a predictive customer intelligence startup that says it helps brands with targeting, ad relevance, and customer loyalty.
Its pitch is that instead of looking at customer acquisition costs, brands should look at customers' lifetime value.
Retina co-founder and CEO Emad Hasan said Facebook and Google are great customer acquisition channels but take months to share return on investment intel.
Retina says brands should focus on customer lifetime value, which it calls a $500 million-plus revenue opportunity.
Retina claims its platform can bring insights to marketers even before a customer makes their first purchase.
It claims to do this with an algorithm that creates consumer profiles based on brands' data.
Brands use Retina to improve their ad campaigns and test new products. The company plans to expand to customer service to let brands prioritize high-value customers.
Retina says its clients include Nestle, Madison Reed, Dollar Shave Club, and Brickell Men's Products.
It says one client used the platform to improve its return on ad spending in real-time.
Retina said another client used the platform to test which product features its high-value customers sought, and tweaked its advertising accordingly.
Hasan's cofounder is Michael Greenberg, an entrepreneur that founded Scale Funder and an academic at UCLA.
The company plans to use the funding to hire, create a self-service product, and work with companies including Shopify+, Segment, Experian, Facebook, and Google.
