Founded in 2018 by Daniel Ramos, Conan Moriarty, and Enric Gabarró, Picker offers a marketplace where users can share, discover, and buy their favourite products based on recommendations on the Picker community. Based 100% on recommendations between people, without sponsors, Picker’s ecosystem includes products recommended by creators, experts, and users.
One year after raising an initial €1.3 million in seed funding, the social commerce startup has now secured an additional €2.1 million to successfully close its seed round with a total of €3.4 million. This funding was led by US-based Luxor capital, with an additional increased investment commitment from European venture capital firm btov Partners (who had financed the initial seed round). Luxor Capital is renowned for investment in digital technology, having participated in funding rounds of online delivery providers such as Barcelona-based Glovo.
Picker has a mission to help people ‘buy better together’ by empowering users to discover, shop and share the best products online that are already being used by their friends, family, and favourite online content creators. Through provisioning a platform for users to follow and buy products from specific categories, based on the recommendations and opinions that matter to them, the social commerce app is offering a powerful new innovation to the social commerce industry. The app aims to be a ‘win-win’ for all because not only can users find great products, but creators also get a small commission every time someone buys a product they have recommended.
With the new funding announced, Picker will plan to accelerate growth and international expansion, already the app is active in Spain, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland on both Android and iOS devices. The company’s goal is to develop into a full marketplace that has an edge over existing social media platforms by focusing on buying better instead of content consumption.
Commenting on the funding, Co-Founder and CEO, Enric Gabarró, stated: “We are extremely grateful for the support we received from our existing investors in 2020 and proud to recently have closed new financing from them and one of the leading venture capital firms in the US. Our goal is to use the funding to hire exceptional talents that will help us to accelerate our growth in the markets we are already active in as well as new ones that we plan to enter.”
So far Picker has on boarded more than 3,500 creators who regularly share their favorite ‘Picks’ on the platform. In September 2021, the app surpassed the 850,000 monthly active users mark. Since its start, Picker has substantially grown year-over-year in gross merchandise volume (GMV) that was generated for its partners through the platform.
The app based marketplace is expected to contribute to the growing social commerce industry. Jan-Hendrik Bürk, from btov Partners expected that the product recommendations that form the background of Picker will be key in the growth of the social commerce vertical, and that Picker has the potential to be a new category leader in this sector.
via https://www.AiUpNow.com
November 3, 2021 at 05:51AM by contact@bcurdy.com, Khareem Sudlow
