✨ Issue #112: Adding A Special Glow To E-Commerce Brands
Claremont grad Ina Herlihy and AddGlow announce their pre-seed round, taking on Reddit and Facebook, and why "owned community" is the next big marketing channel for the $17 trillion e-commerce market
💬 Welcome to issue #112 of Between the Lines
Good morning & happy Thursday. “If you build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.” — Jeff Bezos
This week, StoryHouse portfolio founder Ina Herlihy announces AddGlow’s $1.7M pre-seed raise. She shares her belief that “owned community” is the next big marketing channel for the $17 trillion e-commerce market and how AddGlow is helping brands increase customer retention and word-of-mouth marketing through onsite communities hosted on their own domain. It’s a Claremont world out there. 👇
~ Josh, Miles, Pat
👤 Community Spotlight: Ina Herlihy & AddGlow
Ina completed her Economics degree from Scripps in 2014. After graduation, she attended Tradecraft and soon landed a job as a Growth Analyst at Zumper. She then joined Walmart’s product team, where she was a Product Manager for almost five years. Now, Ina is the founder and CEO of AddGlow – a SaaS software that helps brands build community on their website (think Reddit for brands) to increase revenue, loyalty, organic traffic, and word of mouth.
AddGlow recently announced their $1.7M pre-seed round, led by Stellation Capital and Precursor Ventures. StoryHouse is excited to be an investor in this round, along with a group of strategic angel investors.
AddGlow takes on Reddit, Facebook with community-building software for brands
Ina Herlihy believes e-commerce brands are losing out on organic traffic and potential revenue by relying on third-party community sites, like Reddit and Facebook Groups.
As new user acquisition costs increase, in some cases by hundreds of dollars, brands have to care more about increasing retention and organic traffic, Herlihy told TechCrunch via email. By building an onsite community, brands are able to increase that retention and drive more organic traffic because the community is on their own domain.
Herlihy set out in late 2022 to build community software for brands to host communities on their own websites. AddGlow is the result.
“Owned community is the next big marketing channel for the $17 trillion e-commerce market,” Herlihy said. “Brands who want to foster community do so mostly via Facebook Groups, but there are gaps for both customers and brands. For example, customers don’t have context on who is posting. We solve that with detailed user profiles so brands don’t miss out on owning the data and can reduce the number of steps to make a purchase.”
Here’s how it works: The New York-based startup collects data via profile attributes specified by the brand, for example, skin concern, hair type or favorite type of shoe, so that the brand can personalize the homepage, product description pages, emails and SMS.
In addition, AddGlow integrates with a brand’s catalog so community members can tag products when mentioning them. This allows site visitors to seamlessly add to their cart without leaving the community.
Meanwhile, through an onsite engagement-based loyalty program community members can earn points for completing certain actions, like completing their profile, posting and replying. All of this is customizable by the brand.
The company is still very much in its early stages following a year of product development. It now has $1.7 million in pre-seed funding to boost AddGlow into its next phase, Herlihy said.
The venture capital process took about two months even though Herlihy is somewhat of a unique founder in this challenging funding environment: A “non-technical solo founder with an idea,” as she described herself.
Stellation Capital and Precursor Ventures co-led the round and were joined by Miles Bird at StoryHouse Ventures and a group of strategic angel investors, including former Walmart executive Jeff Shotts, StockX co-founder Chris Kaufman, former Glossier president Henry Davis, Zumper co-founder and CEO Anthemos Georgiades and Walker & Company Brands founder Tristan Walker.
“I met both Peter Boyce II (Stellation) and Charles Hudson (Precursor) via founder friends,” Herlihy said. “Before and during fundraising I asked tech friends which VCs they were most impressed by for pre-seed founders. Charles’ and Peter’s names came up the most, so I knew I needed them on my cap table.”
The new capital enabled Herlihy to bring on engineers and a designer who had previous experience at brands like Walmart, Nike, eBay, Google and Twitch. After a year focused on product development, AddGlow’s second year will be focused on revenue, Herlihy said.
“We started partnering with smaller brands, and now we’re building additional functionality to support larger brands, too,” Herlihy said. “AddGlow helps give people a sense of belonging. Our goal is to foster a safe space for community members to seek personal advice and build meaningful connections.”
Check out the full article on Techcrunch to learn how AddGlow is helping brands retain customers with their community-building software. 👇
📣 Claremont Introductions: Asher Weiss & Tixologi
Claremont graduate Asher Weiss (CMC ‘18) is the co-founder and CEO of Tixologi – an all-in-one, self-serve ticketing platform that puts event producers in control of their ticketing. Tixologi allows event producers to fully customize and integrate their ticketing experience, build a database of fans, and understand all their ticket holders, not just their ticket buyers, eliminate fraudulent tickets, and engage their fans on a deeper level.
If you’re looking to get more for less out of your ticketing solution, look no further than Tixologi. Visit their website today to get started, or email Asher here with any questions. 👇
💼 Who’s Hiring?: Terra AI & Micro
StoryHouse portfolio company Terra AI is on a mission to provide the premier AI platform for the development of critical natural resources. They're leveraging AI modeling, reasoning, and optimization to enhance the performance, predictability, and safety of reservoir, wind, and mineral development projects. Claremont grad Anthony Corso (HMC '14) and John Mern (who previously worked for KoBold Metals, founded by CMC grad Kurt House) are the co-founders of Terra, and they are looking for a talented Senior Software Engineer to lead the development of their core web application product. If you're interested in learning more, shoot us a message.
Senior AI/ML Engineer (Hybrid) - Ideally, someone with a background in building image-generation models such as Dall-E, Adobe Firefly, etc.
Micro is an AI-powered super app built on top of email that helps entrepreneurs manage their businesses with simplicity. The app organizes data from email and other business tools into interactive “Micro Apps” for every workflow, from fundraising to task management, embedded in a modern email client experience. They’re a seed stage company that’s backed by industry leaders such as a16z, Flybridge, Graph, and 50+ other angels and institutions. Product expert and friend of Claremont Brett Goldstein is the founder and CEO of Micro, and he’s looking for a highly-skilled technical partner to be his co-founder and Head of Engineering. Check out the opening if you know someone who would be perfect for the role.
Check out the other ~5,000 open jobs at 400+ Claremont-affiliated companies here on our Storyboard. Plus, create a profile and enter your preferences to get alerted to new job postings relevant to you, be they the 1,000+ remote jobs, 100+ internships, or 40+ part-time positions available. We’ve published research that shows that Claremont-founded companies that disproportionately hire Claremont talent outperform — so pay attention, Claremonsters!
If any of these roles catch your eye 👀 , apply and mention Between the Lines. Or, if you are an employer looking to hire tip-top Claremont talent, fill out this form to have your jobs featured.
🗣️ Conversations on the Interwebz:
This week’s must-watch 📺
KoBold Metals co-founder & CEO Kurt House (CMC ‘01) joined CNN’s Julia Chatterley to discuss their AI-driven exploration and how it found the largest Zambian copper deposits in 100 years. KoBold Metals, backed by big industry names such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, and Sam Altman, is pioneering Digital Exploration to discover minerals that are critical for the global renewable energy transition.
This week’s Claremont financing events 💸
Congratulations to Claremont grad Jake Berber (CMC ‘20) and Prefer on their recent $2M seed round led by Forge Ventures. Jake is the co-founder and CEO of Prefer – a Singapore startup that provides bean-free coffee compatible with standard espresso machines to their B2B customers, including cafes, coffee chains, distributors, and flavor houses. 500 Global, A*ccelerate, Better Bite Ventures, Sopoong Ventures, SEEDS Capital, Entrepreneur First, and Pickup Coffee also participated in the round.
Congratulations to Claremont alum Jake Sullivan (HMC ‘96) and his company on their recent acquisition by High Point Aerotechnologies. Jake is the founder and CEO of Flex Force, a defense company pioneering drone countermeasure technologies.
This week’s top listen 🎧
NOCD co-founder and CEO Stephen Smith (PO ‘17) was recently a guest on the Slice of Healthcare podcast, sharing his own story with OCD and his company’s mission to transform OCD treatment through technology. Stephen also shared NOCD’s founding story and their future plans to extend its impact to other mental health conditions. NOCD is the #1 telehealth provider for the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
Claremont grad Jordan Pedraza (PO) sat down with Lang.ai CEO Jorge Penalva to share her insights on the intersection of technology and customer support, focusing on leveraging AI to improve support operations. Jordan is the VP of Global Support and Trust & Safety at Handshake – a platform that connects up-and-coming talents with Fortune 500 companies and thousands of public school districts, healthcare systems, nonprofits, and even sports teams.
NineDot CEO & co-founder David Arfin (CGU ‘86) was on the latest episode of Alternative Power Plays, talking about the story of NineDot, their impact in NYC, & the pivotal role of batteries in advancing sustainable energy solutions. NineDot Energy develops energy solutions that make the urban grid cleaner, more resilient, and less expensive. The company recently secured $225M in funding, bringing the total to ~$336M for its continued growth and pipeline execution.
Everything else you need to know💡
In celebration of Retro Day, KKR shared the story of how Henry Kravis (CMC) and George Roberts (CMC ‘66), alongside their mentor Jerome Kohlberg and a $120K in startup capital, co-founded the firm and helped build what we now know as the alternatives industry. They go back to 1966 – Henry and George’s college days, when they first began to think about starting a business together.👇
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🍽️ BTL Snacks:
🤝 Talk About The Best Way To Lead….. CGU President Len Jessup recently authored an article for Forbes on why selfless leadership leads to high team performance. In this article, President Jessup talks about the life lessons from his journey in academia and how seeking input from your team and fostering buy-in for your initiatives can actually streamline the implementation process and accelerate your growth.
🍬 Hitting 500 Targets With A Candy Startup….. The homegrown candy startup, Better Sour, has recently landed a deal with one of the biggest grocery chains in the US: Target Corp. Better Sour candies started rolling out in stores in January and will hit the 500-store mark in March of this year. Claremont alum Semira Nikou (SC ‘09) is the company’s co-founder and CEO.
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