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Retale, which has an app and website that aggregates weekly circulars from more than 140 retailers in the country, raised $12 million today.
The investment is part of an $18 million fundraising in Bonial.com Group — Retale’s parent company. The financing for Retale was made by existing private investors, including European digital publisher Axel Springer SE, Retale’s largest stakeholder.
The news comes on the heels of last week’s announcement that Retale, which unites more than 3.5 million consumers with local retailers, launched an app for the Apple Watch. According to Retale President Pat Dermody, the Chicago and Berlin-based company will use the funding to scale the business, which she said has has a “meteoric start” in the U.S.
“The injection of funds will allow us to keep pushing in all directions — continue to push on technology, continue to push on features to the existing product, continue to scale the audience, and continue to hire to be able to support the business,” Dermody said.
Dermody said Retale is up to about 150 employees dedicated to the business, and she said the company will scale its employee base as the business scales.
The company certainly has grown fast, as Dermody indicated. Since launching in Chicago in Oct. 2013, Retale increased its retail partners by more than 664 percent. Some of its partners include JCPenney, Kohl’s, Target and Toys “R” Us. The product not only meets retailer needs, but it also suits changing consumer behavior.
Furthermore, Dermody credits a successful operation in Berlin with expediting Retale’s growth.
“In the U.S., we had the opportunity to launch from a business that had been proven in five countries prior to this — the company started in Germany in 2008. So, we had a product that we knew worked and we had an international playbook of how to develop the audience that we knew worked, so we were starting from a stable base,” Dermody said, adding that a team that understands how to approach a pool of retail customers hungry for innovation helped, as well. Beyond that, Retale is easy to use.
“Retailers are really busy people. The platform is really easy for users to use and really easy for retailers to install,” Dermody said. “So I would say those three core things with the overlay of easiness is really what helped us get to this point in 18 months.”
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