UK E-Commerce Intelligence Startup Ometria Raises $1.5M Seed Round

The UK’s Ometria is another startup that wants to help online retailers make better use of data, and, in turn, compete harder with larger, more data-driven players in the market. It offers an e-commerce “intelligence” platform that provides retailers with insights relating to customer behaviour and product performance and enables them to take subsequent actions — all in the name of attracting the right customers and boosting loyalty for existing ones. And shifting more product, of course.

The London-based company is disclosing a $1.5 million seed round today from a large group of angel investors — I count 16 in total. And while it’s tempting to call this a party round, with no obvious lead investor, it’s hard to argue that this is anything other than an impressive list of entrepreneur-backers from the e-commerce, retail and SaaS worlds.

These include Huddle co-founders Alastair Mitchell and Andy McLoughlin, Tim Jackson (founder of QXL), Phil Wilkinson (founder of Kelkoo), Guy Westlake (Shutl’s Head of Marketing), Sean Cornwell (Chief Digital Officer at Travelex), and Ned Cranborne and Shan Drummond (partners at Samos Investments). In addition, Former eBay and TalkTalk executive, Elisabeth Ling (currently VP Digital at online retailer AlexandAlexa.com), has invested and joins the board of Ometria.

Meanwhile, Ometria says it will use the new funding to grow the team and to further develop the platform. Its HQ is in Mayfair, London, and the startup has a second office in Moscow. It boasts a team of 12, including developers, data experts and programmers originating from Israel, Uzbekistan, Russia, Croatia and Portugal. How very European.

Ometria competitors span anything from Google Analytics, or an upstart like GoSquared’s new e-commerce analytics offering, or something like U.S.-based RJ Metrics.

On how Ometria is differentiating itself from others in the e-commerce analytics and business “intelligence” space, Ivan Mazour, founder and CEO, tells TechCrunch:

We were built from the very beginning for retailers, taking guidance and feedback only from these, rather than attempting to fit an existing all-purpose solution to this particular segment. We developed a product which would have immediate integration and which would require no complex setup or customisation. This is not the case for our competitors, and is only possible because our product was designed for retail.

To that end, Ometria is compatible with commonly used e-commerce platforms such as Magento, Shopify and Hybris. Customers get a 28-day free trial and then pay a monthly subscription.