Emperia, which creates immersive e-commerce spaces for retail brands, has raised a $10 million Series A.
This follows an $875k pre-seed in 2021 (featuring Concept Ventures, SFC Capital, Blissgrowth).
The Series A round was led by Base10 Partners and joined by investors including Daphni (via its retail fund Dastore), Sony Innovation Fund, Background Capital, Stanford Capital Partners and Concept Ventures. Angels include Blissgrowth’s Jay Radia.
That’s a wrap for @NRFBigShow 2023 biggest retail event!🥳
The 3 day #event brought together the entire #retail industry to present the latest innovations while developing a #community of forward-thinkers🧠
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— Emperia (@emperiavr) January 23, 2023
Emperia’s clients include Dior, Bloomingdales and Lacoste. It was launched by fashion and retail specialist Olga Dogadkina and VR innovation expert Simonas Holcmann in 2019.
It will use this fresh funding to grow its team, develop its virtual store SaaS platform and deepen the capabilities of the data suite that powers it, with the aim of accelerating global market presence .
It also plans to utilise virtual store customer data to provide retailers with even better tools with which to personalise the customer experience.
Emperia will also work with partners to bring various global virtual e-commerce solutions under one roof; leveraging the fast growing Web3 ecosystem and its partners’ brand and retail technologies to deliver “game changing customer experiences”.
CEO Dogadkina comments: “While working in fashion, it became clear to me that e-commerce was the future, but 2D websites were merely a tool that enabled an online purchase, but were lacking the customer journey and story-telling that brands are after.”
“The solution was to bridge that gap, with the aim of making virtual experiences into the future of brands’ long-term e-commerce strategy.”
“We are strong believers in data reliance and as such all our virtual experiences are developed incorporating analytics, which is reflected in layout, design, user experience and merchandise placement. Crucially, we’re doing this in a way that has a demonstrable impact on sales, traffic, engagement and brand perception.”
“I’m confident that the pool of participating investors in this round, from both the US and Europe, will make for a great network of advisors as Emperia continues its global expansion, pioneering e-commerce’s next generation. I’m looking forward to delivering an even more impactful experience for our brand partners.”
Luci Fonseca of Base10 Partners, says: “When we met Olga and Simon, we were absolutely stunned by the high quality team they had already built and the business’ early traction.”
“The more we spoke to customers, the more we saw that Emperia is on the edge of a global revolution on how consumers interact with retailers and brands.”
“One way to think about Emperia is through the lens of ‘web 2.5’ – it is a device-agnostic bridge for brands to engage with a new generation of consumers while driving real commerce.”
“Emperia is pioneering the development of virtual store creation and maintenance, and we’re excited to be partnering with a team that is truly building for the future of e-commerce.”
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