Ask anyone selling online about the cost of acquiring customers compared to just a few years back and they will tell you a story of woe. Channels once considered cost-effective for acquiring customers have become expensive real estate, such as various social networks. The fact that Facebook recently crossed the $1 trillion threshold for market capital is a testament to this fact.Co-op is determined to change the way online sellers find customers. It wants to do this with a spirit that encourages collaboration and offers a discount. Today, the startup announced a $5.8million round that closed earlier in the month. This is evidence that it has found backers to its model that already has 500 brands.This last figure is important because co-op has an almost unique collaborative nature. Co-op allows brands to include their technology on the post-purchase page. This allows customers to see related products after they have purchased something. A widget will allow a company's product to be displayed on another company's post-purchase page.This sounds anti-capitalist, and it wouldn't work in a venture-backed environment. What's the twist? The widget on the post-purchase page shows three to four products. This gives it additional inventory that it can sell its partnered brands. Presto, revenue.Conner Sherline is the founder and CEO of the company. He told TechCrunch his startup can offer advertising space at half the cost of Facebook. It will be interesting to see how the economics of the model scales as more brands join.Software tooling is also offered by the startup, which includes a post-purchase survey feature that customers can leverage for 5 cents each.Sherlines startup seems to be growing rapidly. It had 20 brands signed up for its service when it raised pre-seed capital in July. The company adds 50 to 100 new brands each month. It could add another 50 to 100 brands each month at this rate and reach 1,000 brands by the end the year.Sugar Capital was attracted to lead the latest round of its funding round by Bessemer Venture Partners, Shopify and Shopify. Shopify's Shopify Check is very interesting. For example, co-op exists already on the Shopify App Store. TechCrunch will be watching for additional integrations between the companies. This could help boost the startup's growth.Co-op can expand in many places. Sherline stated in an interview with TechCrunch that co-op's collaborative network is the most important thing the company is working towards. We believe that co-op, with its wealth of sales data and partners, could quickly build partner networks for other areas of the ecommerce sales cycle.The company has now raised more than $1.6 million. Let's see how fast it can expand its brand base using the new funds.
