Retail Analytics Startup IntelligenceNODE Raises $4M From NEA And Orios

Mumbai-based IntelligenceNODE, a big data analytics startup that serves retailers, is eyeing expansion in the U.S. after raising $4 million in Series A funding led by New Enterprise Associates and Orios Venture Partners. The company plans also plans to hire more engineers and data scientists to build its platform, which helps brands figure out the best merchandising strategies for their products.

IntelligenceNODE claims that its technology allows retailers to reduce their merchandise life cycle from six months to ten days by recommending prices and identifying items that are underperforming so they can be cleared from inventories. It also categorizes products that can be marketed together to increase margins. The startup’s tools are especially helpful for fashion brands, which need to push out new products as quickly as possible. IntelligenceNODE’s current clients include Uniliver, Tata, Jockey, and PrettySecrets, an online lingerie store in India.

“We realized that many retailers and brands are faced with tough decisions that can determine their success—are they selling the right product at the right price? Is it better to underprice or overprice?” says chief executive officer Sanjeev Sularia, who co-founded IntelligenceNODE in 2012 with Yasen Dimitrov.

Sularia says IntelligenceNODE looks at data points for similar products from different competitors and regions, then overlays it with seasonal and festive trends from each client’s own inventory and selling history, shopping basket data, promotions, and consumer behavior. IntelligenceNODE’s analytics help stores design promotions and retail layouts that are more likely to prompt impulse purchases. For e-commerce sites, it can improve recommended products based on what is in each shopper’s basket.

IntelligenceNODE

IntelligenceNODE

Most of IntelligenceNODE’s competitors are in the U.S. and include companies like Indix, 360pi, Boomerang Commerce, and Upstream Commerce.

IntelligenceNODE’s “key differentiators include a deep product understanding and coverage with specific specialty in soft lines across geographies, which spans over 700 million unique products from 100,000 brands across 800 individual categories and covering over 10,000 product specific attributes,” says Sularia, as well as real-time pricing and merchandising suggestions.

In a prepared statement, NEA director Tarun Sharma said IntelligenceNODE’s “technology enables brands and retailers, especially in the fashion and accessories categories, to harness the full power of analytics which was a pain point earlier given the non-standardized nature of products in these categories.”

Combined with a seed round last year, IntelligenceNODE has now raised total funding of $4.4 million. The company says its revenue grew nearly 450 percent between its seed and Series A rounds, and that it plans to increase revenue five times over the next year.