The $11m funding, one of the largest Series A investments ever made into a UK start-up, comes from renowned UK venture capital firms Octopus Investments, whose previous investments have included Zoopla, YPlan and SwiftKey) and Notion Capital, which funded Shutl and Duedil. It means the London headquartered business can now quickly roll out its social shopping technology into China and India after launching in the UK and US.
Peter Janes, Founder and CEO of Shopa, said: “Combining online shopping with the power of social is the holy grail of ecommerce, yet many brands are failing to fully embrace the value of social in connecting people to their products.
“Shopa, spearheading social shopping, represents the future of ecommerce where people, not products, are the driving force. Shopa has been cleverly built to provide retailers with a global marketplace for reaching millions of customers, as well as providing the perfect platform to hugely amplify noise around their brands and products all over the world.”
Currently available on desktop and iOS application via the App Store, Shopa is central to the evolution of ecommerce and is on a mission to change online shopping forever. It is focused on unlocking the full benefits of social commerce in a bid to disrupt the current online shopping arena for the benefit of both consumers and retailers who partner with Shopa.
For the first time, its patented social tracking technology will allow retailers to track and analyse all of the social interactions taking place around their products across any platform and any device in real time. When partnering with Shopa, retailers are provided with a comprehensive solution that now brings together both basket and social analytics. The technology will equally give brands unique data insight into the impact of social channels and the huge influence of the ‘in market’ virtual salesforce into online purchase behaviour.
The expansion of Shopa into China and India will also provide retailers with an ever-growing customer base as well as global visibility and distribution for their products. With social at its core, Shopa will equally represent the most influential social shopping site with retail partners being able to closely monitor what’s trending and what’s being said internationally about their own products and brands.
Shopa’s ability to streamline the plethora of items available online to exactly match what customers like, plus the access it provides to a growing collection of global brands, will also reinvigorate the often brand-led and impersonal shopping experience for customers. With the opportunity to make all purchases directly on the Shopa site, irrespective of device or platform, it will equally make online buying easier and more convenient.
Luke Hakes, a member of the Ventures team at Octopus Investments, said: “Shopa is raising the bar in terms of monetising personal recommendations whilst also providing customers with more of what they want. With its unique focus on social, we are hugely excited about the opportunity that Shopa represents and know it will quickly carve itself a place alongside other heavyweight global retailers.”
