In a crowded digital realm, e-commerce companies are constantly updating the customer experience to respond to emerging touchpoints and to engage consumers in novel ways. Headless commerce is gaining in popularity, designed with a flexible architecture that decouples the front end of a site from the back-end commerce functionality. By decoupling, e-commerce companies can rapidly iterate and test without disrupting the core commerce functionality, resulting in reduced development time while enriching the customer experience. Taking this one step further is Chord, a headless e-commerce technology platform that also integrates data thanks to its recent acquisition of Yaguara, a business intelligence platform. The company bills its offering as “commerce-as-a-service”, allowing e-commerce companies to make data-driven decisions using sophisticated insights on a scalable platform without making significant investments in internal data and technology teams. AlleyWatch caught up with former Glossier executives CEO Bryan Mahoney and Chairman and COO Henry Davis to learn more about the company’s decision to rebrand from Afra, the recent acquisition, future plans, and recent round of funding from investors that include Eclipse Ventures, Foundation Capital, White Star Capital, Forerunner Ventures, Index Ventures, and Thrive Capital, as well as angel investors from the commerce world.
Foundation Capital
#NYCtech Week in Review: 3/21/21 – 3/27/21
$1.7B+ invested in NYC startups in the past week; the best single week for funding in NYC Tech history! NYC Tech News for the week ending 3/27 featuring news for Chord, Dataminr, and much, much more.
The AlleyWatch Startup Daily Funding Report: 3/24/2021
The latest venture capital, seed, pre-seed, and angel deals for NYC startups for 3/24/2021 featuring funding details for Sakara Life, Chord, and much more.
The Weekly Notable Startup Funding Report: 3/22/21
The Weekly Notable Startup Funding Report takes us on a trip across various ecosystems in the US, highlighting some of the notable funding activity in the various markets that we track. The notable startup funding rounds for the week ending 3/20/21 featuring funding details for Docker, Shelf Engine, and twenty-five other rounds that you must know about.
These are the 15 Largest NYC Tech Startup Funding Rounds of Q4 2020
These 13 Largest NYC Tech Startup Funding Rounds of 2020
#NYCtech Week in Review: 12/27/20-1/2/21
The AlleyWatch Startup Daily Funding Report: 12/28/2020
The latest venture capital, seed, pre-seed, and angel deals for NYC startups for 12/28/2020 featuring funding details for VidMob, SimpleSense, and much more.
The 11 Largest US Tech Startup Funding Rounds of November 2020
Everything you need to need to know about the largest US startup funding rounds of November 2020; broken down by industry, stage, investors, and more. Each of these companies raised at least $100M last month.
The 15 Largest NYC Tech Startup Funding Rounds of November 2020
Current Banks $131M to be the Challenger Bank That Brings Much-Needed Liquidity for Those Living Paycheck to Paycheck
The current banking system in the US isn’t structured to help the 130M+ Americans that are living paycheck to paycheck to succeed, instead banks focus on large depositors to support their lending businesses. Current is the digital challenger bank that directly addresses this mismatch by focusing on liquidity and providing access to banking services that include the ability to deliver paychecks up to two days early with direct deposit, no overdraft fees, and earn cashback. The company’s platform is designed to be inclusive for all Americans regardless of age or income level, especially the younger generation; the average age of a Current checking account member is 27 and approximately 50% of its members have never had a bank account before. AlleyWatch caught up with CEO and Founder Stuart Sopp to learn about Current’s response during the pandemic, simple mission to get money to its customers as fast as possible, impressive user growth, and recent funding round from investors that include Tiger Global Management, Sapphire Ventures. Avenir, Foundation Capital, Wellington Management Company, and QED Investors.