Capillary Technologies, a cloud-based retail customer engagement management, has announced that it has closed a $14 million Series B round of venture financing led by Sequoia Capital and Norwest Venture Partners (NVP). This new investment adds to the $17 million of Series A funding received in 2012. The funding will be used to enhance Capillary’s cloud-based integrated marketing platform and grow its partnership ecosystem, which already includes Blue Label Engage in South Africa and the American Express US Global Merchants Services group.
“Retailers realize a 15% increase in Average Basket Value and 30% increase in their customer retention rate by implementing our solutions, which is the reason we continue to grow so rapidly around the world,” says Aneesh Reddy, co-founder and CEO of Capillary Technologies. In fact, consumer-facing businesses such as such as Pizza Hut, Puma, Marks & Spencer, Red Tag, Homes r Us, VLCC and Mihyar have witnessed 5-7% increases in sales and 4-6X ROI.
Capillary’s Intelligent Customer Engagement™ (ICE) suite of software solutions incorporates everything that retail marketers require to engage with their customers, weaving social and mobile experiences into any e-commerce platform or point-of-sale device from legacy terminals to POS devices, mobile tablets, and online shopping platforms.
“Capillary has demonstrated that it can scale up successfully and profitably by focusing on a segment that has been underserved by other more expensive and complex solutions,” says Shailesh Lakhani, principal at Sequoia Capital. “The strength of Capillary’s solution is its ability to deliver immediate business results. We are excited to partner with the company in this next crucial phase of its growth.”
Capillary has also partnered with Agilysys, which is a developer and marketer of proprietary enterprise software, services and solutions to the hospitality industry and operates extensively throughout North America, Europe and Asia. “We are excited to have them on board and our partnership will allow us to bring innovative solutions to companies of all sizes in the hospitality industry,” said Anant Choubey, vice president of the APAC region at Capillary Technologies.
Notable new customers include Marks & Spencer, KFC, Lacoste, Keedo, a leading children’s clothing manufacturers in South Africa, and Courts, a IT and furniture retailer in Southeast Asia.
“We want to continue to provide innovative shopping experiences for our customers. Capillary’s insights-driven approach has allowed us to more precisely target prospects in six European countries who will be most receptive to our expanded product line,” said Zdenek Hasek, head of marketing at Marks & Spencer for Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Baltics.