MyTAG Wants To Make Local Selling Safer And Simpler Spotted in the Startup Alley at TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2013, myTAG is a soon-to-launch online platform for local selling that aims to make the e-commerce experience more transparent between buyer and seller by adding “social proof” into the equation. That is, instead of only looking at anonymous postings on a community board like Craigslist, myTAG users pull in their eBay and Amazon ratings as well as their social media profiles, and add them to their account to gain legitimacy. Of course, many of companies have tried to take on Craigslist, and have failed to gain traction. But, explains myTAG co-founder Tony Pham, his platform is differentiated not only by the introduction of social profiles and seller ratings, but also because of its support for video.
FixYa’s New FixBoard Allows Companies To Track Customer Support Trends FixYa, a Q&A site where consumers can seek advice from product experts, is launching a new feature today called the FixBoard, which should make the site more useful to big consumer brands. As the name suggests, the FixBoard is basically a dashboard of FixYa data. It shows, over time, the number of FixYa owners who reported a problem with a company product, the products that have the most reported problems, the most common problems, and how those numbers stack up against the competition. Rather than just looking at individual questions or individual products, this dashboard provides brands with a much broader view of “what customers are saying,” said CEO Yaniv Bensadon. Greentape Brings Reviews To Consumers And Data To Merchants With a plan of making product ratings social, Greentape is launching a new app that they hope will bring in-store product reviews to consumers while (hopefully) spawning more product purchases for merchants. The team is demoing this new app at TechCrunch Disrupt NY 2013. Greentape works like this: Consumers download the app, and as they move throughout a retail store the location aware app notifies them about products with the active user reviews as they pass by those products. It is accurate to about 3 feet or so, according to CEO Chris Daltas.
Backed By Google Ventures, Greylock & Matrix, Sold Launches A Mobile Service That Takes The Hassle Out Of Selling Online While eCommerce has exploded over the last decade, digital marketplaces still suffer the same nagging user experience flaws they always have — particularly person-to-person marketplaces. It probably hasn’t been that long since you heard someone mutter “craigslist is creepy,” or lament about digital payments, security issues or about how it takes forever to sell something on eBay. Many startups have taken the “let’s build a better craigslist” approach and attempt to build a whole new marketplace, mobile or otherwise. But building a marketplace is tough and requires time.
Customer Loyalty And Rewards Platform For Local Businesses Belly Raises $10M From Andreessen Horowitz Chicago-based Belly, a startup that is a fast-growing contender in the local business customer loyalty and rewards space, has raised $10 million in Series B funding from Andreessen Horowitz. The company also announced that Andreessen Horowitz partner Jeff Jordan, former chairman and CEO of OpenTable and former president of PayPal, will join the Board. This latest round of funding adds to a seven-figure round raised by the startup from Lightbank, the venture firm founded by Groupon co-founders Eric Lefkofsky and Brad Keywell. Belly wants to reinvent customer loyalty rewards through gamification, digital check-ins and a iPad setup for businesses. But the startup has a slightly different take on how to achieve this.
Edocr Integrates With Zendesk To Allow Embedded Documents It’s been a few years since edocr appeared on the scene to allow people to share, edit and organise documents, not unlike Slideshare. To be honest I thought they’d disappeared but it turns out they are out of the startup ‘trough of despondency’ and getting somewhere. Founder CEO Manoj Ranaweera tells me they now have over 26,000 users and are growing at 33% monthly. They’ve also now integrated with customer service giant Zendesk. Using edocr with Zendesk means you can now embed documents into your Zendesk forums or in tickets with a drag and drop interface without having to update links to a document or having outdated information presented customers. Todd Revolt, Director, Business Development of Zendesk says, the integration with edocr.com makes adding customer service documents to forums much easier.
CircleMe Lets You Plant – And Find – Virtual Items On Locations There are one or two apps which allow you to ‘plant’ virtual objects in a location allowing others to pick them up later on (Pinterest for location anyone?). Everplaces literally just launched, Stikinotes and Pinwheel have yet to launch. But CircleMe comes out of a six months closed beta today to try and prove it’s different than the others. Launching with a website, an iPhone app and $2.5 million in funding from VC firm Innogest Capital, this social network lets users geo-tag a city to trigger alerts when you are near something you’ve said you already like on another social network. Users “plant” a song, a book, a movie, a venue, a famous person, you name it, along with an associated message for others to enjoy. CircleMe has also pre-populated the database with close to 1 million items to “like”, and another 11 million to access via API connections with other networks.
DealBoard For iPhone Finds Offers You Like, So You Can Kill The Daily Deal Emails DealBoard, a recently launched iPhone app from Seattle and London-based nFluence Media, has just emerged as a new player in the crowded “daily deals” space. But this app isn’t yet another Groupon clone, it’s a daily deal aggregator. However, what makes dealBoard unique – and why the company has $3 million in funding – is how the app goes about aggregating those deals for you. Instead of just rounding up a list of all the deals in the area, dealBoard personalizes the experience based on your interests. With dealBoard, you don’t have to create an account, hand over your email address, provide your phone number, or give up any other personal information to the company.
Reply Relaunches MerchantCircle As A More Consumer-Focused Merchant Marketplace As we reported last year, Reply acquired online marketing network for small business owners MerchantCircle. Merchant Circle which provides a business directory for merchants in smaller towns and currently lists over a million small businesses has long targeted merchants in small locales versus catering towards the consumers, as sites like Yelp and CitySearch do. Today, Reply is relaunching MerchantCircle has a more consumer-focused destination. Basically, the newly redesigned site allows consumers to find qualified providers in their local area, receive quotes and find expert advice, while giving merchants tools for servicing their local markets. Consumers can search for and find providers across all business categories, including home repair and improvement; health and beauty; financial and professional services; construction and real estate services; restaurants; and more. Currently the site has more than 1.2 million active member merchants.
French Birchbox Competitor JolieBox Acquires Spain’s Glamourum JolieBox, which is basically a French version of Birchbox, has just acquired the Spanish version of Birchbox, a service known as Glamourum. The acquisition comes a few months following the company’s Series A with Alven Capital, and the acquisition of its U.K. competitor Boudoir Privé. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it was for a mix of cash and stock, the company says. JolieBox was founded in 2011, and has ambitions to expand into international markets, as indicated by its previous acquisitions. With the Glamourum acquisition, the company now has ties with top brands in the Iberian market. And it already has established relationships with over 100 beauty brands, including Lancôme, Yves Saint Laurent, L’Oreal, Laura Mercier, Caudalie, Payot, L’Occitane, Bourjois, Kiehl’s, and others.
Online Marketplace For Designer Fashion Boutiques FarFetch Raises $18M From Index Ventures FarFetch, and online marketplace for independent fashion boutiques, has raised $18 million in funding from Index Ventures, eVenture Capital Partners and existing investor Advent Venture Partners. This brings FarFetch’s total funding to $24 million. Launched in 2008, Farfetch.com is marketplace which brings independent fashion boutiques from Europe and North America under one roof. The London-based company offers a curated network of online boutiques from designer brands like Fendi, Gucci, and Chloé as well as from emerging designers. Currently the site offers clothing for both men and women, and includes over 35,000 products.