Montreal-based loyalty marketing start-up Thirdshelf has announced it has procured $800,000 from some of the country’s most notable names in retail tech and high-profile investors.
Thirdshelf is a cloud-based loyalty marketing platform designed for independent retailers that utilizes machine learning, data analytics and marketing automation to generate and automatically run loyalty programs optimized for each retailer’s business.
Karim Salabi, co-founder of Ascendis Commerce and former executive vice-president of Rona, contributed to the round of funding along with angel investors Marc Petit and Dominic Bécotte. Investment firms Otimo Ventures, iNovia Capital and angel fund Interaction Ventures also contributed.
Thirdshelf was launched in early 2014 with an iBeacon-powered app, but Antoine Azar, Thirdshelf’s co-founder and chief technology officer, told Marketing that Thirdshelf did a “pivot” that same year to “better address the market needs and the reality of our retail customers.”
As a result, the firm went “stealth” for about 18 months, and quietly built partnerships, signed up customers and raised its round of seed funding. Thirdshelf currently has hundreds of retailers on its platform, with the majority based in the U.S. (90%) and the rest located mostly in Canada.
Thirdshelf says it will use this round of financing to add more retailers to its platform, continue developing its technology and establish further partnerships in the retail industry.
It has also announced a partnership with Montreal-based point-of-sale software provider Lightspeed. The companies say the collaboration will enable both to further serve independent retailers and allow for a seamless checkout experience for businesses.
“Thirdshelf’s goal is to empower small and medium-sized retailers with the best marketing and customer retention tools in the world,” Azar said. “We can only achieve this through a deep integration with point of sales and e-commerce systems already in place. When we looked at the best players in the industry, Lightspeed was a natural fit in terms of a partnership.”
