In-store marketing platform Nomi raises $10M Series A

Company been growing very quickly since raising its seed round in February

Nomi, a marketing platform for offline businesses, has raised $10 million in Series A funding, it was announced on Wednesday. The round was led by Accel Partners, while existing investors First Round Capital, Greycroft Partners and Forerunner ventures also participated.  

This new funding comes only nine months after Nomi raised its seed round of $3 million, bringing its funding total to $13 million.

The company was not expecting to raise its second round so quickly, Marc Ferrentino, co-founder and CEO of Nomi, told me in an interview, but the company was forced to as it has been growing quicker than expected.

In just the last six months, Nomi has signed on 50 major merchants, and has had to hire a slew of account management employees to keep up with demand, causing the company to grow from just four employees to 37 in that timeframe.

The new money will be used to grow the team even further, specifically in its engineering and product teams. If the company continues the growth it has seen over the last half year, Ferrentino said, it could see upwards of 70 to 100 employees by the end of next year.

Nomi is a mobile first technology platform that provides companies that have physical spaces with the ability to gain greater insights by tracking consumer behavior across in-store and online channels by measuring, analyzing, and engaging their customers in real time.

The company's solution leverages the company's existing infrastructure by integrating with existing CRM, loyalty, and e-commerce platforms and it allows retailers to leverage both offline and online data to provide customers with more personalized service.

To achieve this, Nomi offers two products: Nomi Listen, which provides real time offline analytics technology to customers by allowing them to measure statistics, such as window conversion, visit duration, visit frequency and device type; and Nomi Measure, which takes the insights gained from Listen and and then applies them so that retailers can create better advertising campaigns.

One of the big changes since the company's seed round has been the realization that Nomi is not just a retail tech solution but a marketing platform, said Ferrentino, which has allowed the company to expand to a myriad of other verticals, including automotive, theaters, gas stations, amusement parks and restaurants. 

To give me an example of how Nomi would work outside of a retail environment, Ferrentino used the example of quick-serve restaurant. 

Nomi would be able to quantify how long customers were staying in line, as well as how many employees would be needed during peaks times, especially during lunch and dinner hours, when the company makes the bulk of its money. It can also calculate the the bounce rate of customers during these times.

It could also tell the company what the impact was of its new menu items. For example, if it is attracting new customers or if it is bringing loyal customers back more often.

"Through the characteristics of the store we can reliably predict future revenue, based on the composition of customers and behavior," said Ferrentino.

Nomi is then able to put a quantifiable number on how much the company can either save or make based on these analytics, and that is a big part of what has helped the company thrive over the last six months.

"Everyone likes new technology, but the thing that allows customers to adopt it is attaching a real business value to it," said Ferrentino.

The company is now used by 52 customers, include five of the top fifty Apparel Retailers and three of the top fifty Quick Serve Restaurant chains in the United States.

Founded in August 2012, Nomi is led by former executives from Salesforce.com and Buddy Media, including Ferrentino, the former Chief Technical Architect for Salesforce.com; Chief Revenue Officer Wesley Barrow, who was the top revenue producer at Buddy Media; and President Corey Capasso, co-founder of Spinback, which was acquired by Buddy Media in May 2011.

Salesforce bought Buddy Media for $689 million in June 2012. 

(Image source: https://www.getnomi.com)