The startup says it made C$1 million in revenue this year and wants to triple that amount next year.
While holiday shopping in Canada this year may lack the enthusiasm that comes with a sunnier economic climate, e-commerce marketing teams remain determined to use digital channels to drive customers to the checkout.
“[Glowtify has] has created a ‘painkiller’ solution that businesses urgently need.”
Kevin Madill, Graphite
Canadian startups creating marketing tools are, in turn, gaining momentum. A few months after the promotion pre-seed roundstartup from Montreal shine has secured $3.4 million CAD in seed funding as it hopes it will be the ideal platform for small teams aiming for high volume sales. In an interview, CEO and co-founder Mark Allard told BetaKit that the capital will drive growth ahead of the busy holiday retail season.
“We wanted to make sure we scaled our go-to-market over this period. [and] capture as much of the market as possible,” Allard said.
The all-equity round, which closed in August, was co-led by Montreal-based Accelia Capital and Toronto-based Graphite Ventures, with participation from Montreal's new fund Telegraph Ventures, Edmonton-based Sprout Fund, Montreal-based DevCap and angel investors.
Glowtify positions itself as a “command center” for marketing leaders, especially those working on small e-commerce teams generating $500,000 or more in annual revenue. The platform aims to automate the collection of marketing information, convert it into recommendations, and ultimately quadruple the amount of content brands can distribute across their channels. Using commercially available AI models, Glowtify suggests and creates posts to increase engagement based on seasonal trends and industry data.
While Glowtify previously projected its annual recurring revenue would reach $2 million by September, Allard said the company has gone from zero to $1 million in revenue over the past year. He declined to share additional information about revenue figures.
A trade war with the United States weakened consumer sentiment in Canada ahead of the holiday season. According to accounting firm PwC CanadaCanadians plan to spend up to 10 per cent less on holiday expenses such as gifts and travel compared to last year. Nearly three-quarters of Canadians plan to cut spending, according to a bankruptcy study. Harris and Associates.
Glowtify has stepped up its strategy to enter the Canadian market, but American brands make up a significant portion of its customer base. While U.S. consumer sentiment has also taken a hit, holiday spending is expected to rise more than four percent from last year to reach $1 trillion for the first time in history, according to National Retail Federation.
Glowtify will use the funds to invest in its go-to-market strategy and build a team of artificial intelligence developers. The company has already hired employees across Canada, increasing its team to 25 people, with plans to expand.
Since the seed round, Allard said the company has “refined” its ideal customer base, targeting marketing teams of two to five people. “Smaller teams won’t have to choose between speed and skill,” he said. The company wants to address the market's need for a single platform to give teams more time for creative efforts as they reduce the time it takes to organize campaigns across multiple platforms.
The engineering team will work to connect Glowtify's AI agents to the context of other platforms such as Shopify, WordPress, Klaviyo, and ChatGPT to allow teams to access context from anywhere the marketing team may be working.
Allard and his co-founders created Glowtify from an internal project at their digital e-commerce agency, Walter Interactive, after recognizing the opportunity to aggregate marketing data. The technology is best suited for brands that sell on Shopify platforms due to its long history of data richness and integration.
“We've followed them from the earliest stages, and their team has consistently demonstrated exceptional execution speed, rapid sales growth and a keen focus on capital efficiency,” Kevin Madill, partner at Graphite Ventures, said in a statement. “They have created a painkiller solution that businesses urgently need.”
Image courtesy of Glowtify.
