Buywith completed a $9.5 million seed round, which may be the kind of funding a younger company takes, but the livestream shopping platform is actually a veteran in this emerging way of shopping.
The company was founded in Israel by Eyal Sinai and Adi Ronen Almagor, who wanted to give end users a place to consult with their friends and family while shopping.
When she was in the U.S., Ronen created a video-enabled tool that she could use to help influencer shopping. She would ask potential customers if they preferred the standard business-to-business shopping tool or the video one with celebrities, and many chose the video.
When I met Eyal, we saw that we had something interesting if we added the video layer on top.
Retailers and brands can host on-site livestream shopping events featuring experts and brand representatives as viewers shop live and interact with the hosts.
SoftBank leads $150M round for Firework’s shoppable video
The buywith team with co-founders Eyal Sinai and Adi Ronen Almagor. The image is called buywith.
The screen-sharing component and the fact that it does not require an app download or code integration make it easier for brands to use it. Walmart was able to get up and running with the platform and go live immediately because buywith started out with them. New partnerships with Steve Madden and Charlotte Tilbury are in the works as the company has integration capabilities now.
The company had four employees and four pilots when it first started. Live commerce was already a huge hit in China, where sales are expected to hit $423 billion in 2022, but her company was one of the few doing it elsewhere.
When the global Pandemic hit, companies and brands were out to find more ways to engage with their audience and retain relationships with new audiences.
The company, now with 20 employees, is delivering an eight-time increase in e-commerce conversions, an increase of around 40% session engagement rate, and an average of 10 times return on investment.
She said that buywith brought in millions of dollars in ARR in the last year because of the growth it experienced. The company is in the process of opening offices in the U.K. to expand its European market presence.
The seed round was led by igniteXL Venture, which was joined by Fab Co-Creation Studio Venture, and the former Europe and North American president of Alibaba.com. The company has 18 female investors from Israel, the U.S. and Europe.
Live commerce is a key to increasing e- commerce conversion rates. Buywith wants to close the gap.
The U.S. has a lot of bandwidth to catch up. Live commerce in the country will only reach $35 billion in sales by the year 2024. Firework has picked up $150 million this week, as well as Drip.
Buywith plans to use its new cash injection to grow its sales, marketing and R&D teams. It is working on a self-serve marketplace where brands can choose the host for their livestream shopping sessions.
With the audience being young, we want to eventually enable them to buy with coins and even offer purchase chances to go live with the host.
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