Highlights:

  • Zoovu plans to use the investment to drive its U.S. market expansion and growth initiatives to solidify its status as the leading customer experience enablement solution provider.
  • Customers including Trek Bikes, 3M, and Whirlpool use Zoovu’s software to help shoppers shift through product listings.

Zoovu, a “product discovery” platform, recently announced that it had raised USD 169 million in a Series C round of funding. The round was led by FTV Capital, a growth equity investor that focuses on innovative enterprise technology and services businesses. Zoovu plans to use the funds to build its go-to-market strategy and team, especially in the United States, and bolster its data-driven product platform to drive a better e-commerce experience. It further aims to help businesses achieve their goals to help buyers discover products and make purchase decisions.

As shopping has rapidly shifted from in-store to online in recent years, many brands and retailers have struggled to guide consumers on a seamless journey – from discovery to purchase. Customer confusion leads to lower customer satisfaction, a decrease in conversion rates, and a higher number of returns on goods bought online.

Since 2020, e-commerce retail accounted for almost 20% of global retail sales. It is projected to grow to 24.5% within the next three years. In the US, legacy brands with a robust offline presence comprise the largest segment of e-commerce as these brands rush to shift to online offerings. In the face of this transformational growth in e-commerce and soaring demand for digital solutions, considerable gaps around customer experience and product content remain. This offers a significant opportunity to leverage technology to imitate the in-store experience in a digital setting.

Zoovu’s role in streamlining customer experience

Businesses and consumers are now faced with choice paralysis, which is further compounded by thousands of SKUs, complex catalogs, and filters that don’t understand the context. Zoovu helps eliminate friction from the online buying process by streamlining customer experience through its all-in-one AI-driven platform. It automatically analyzes behavioral data and offers tips for performance optimization, offering insights into customer needs, buyer behavior, product performance, preferences, and current trends.

Moreover, Zoovu structures product content and enhances it with conversational language to enable personalized product discovery experiences such as semantic search, visual configurators, and conversational assistants across all digital channels and partners. The AI platform cleans and organizes data, increases visibility, and makes it understandable. The company boasts a client roster of leading brands such as Euronics, 3M, Whirlpool, and Microsoft.

This funding is in line with the positive momentum built by Zoovu, which recorded 85% growth in 2020, followed by 70% growth in 2021. Currently, Zoovu generates over USD 25 billion in annual sales for its customers.

Experts’ Take

“As we look to enhance our offering further and grow our platform in the United States, we are excited to partner with a leading growth equity firm in the US,” said Rob Mullen, CEO at Zoovu. “FTV’s operational resources and expansive Global Partner Network will help bring Zoovu to even more brands, so they can deliver discovery experiences to consumers and ultimately increase conversion rates. The FTV team possesses an intimate understanding of the pain points enterprises face every day as e-commerce adoption continues to accelerate. We are confident that together we will build Zoovu into the leading customer experience enablement solution.”

“As the global e-commerce market continues to accelerate with more activity migrating online, the stakes have never been higher for all brands to deliver better digital experiences,” said Brad Bernstein, managing partner at FTV Capital. “When we first met the Zoovu team several years ago, we were immediately drawn to how the company sits at the intersection of customer experience, digital transformation, and e-commerce. By offering an intuitive, guided shopping experience, Zoovu’s platform delivers tangible ROI to brands by boosting conversion rates, average order value and customer satisfaction, ultimately driving meaningful increases in revenue.”