After raising a cumulative $27.7 million for its e-commerce software from investors including a Warby Parker co-founder, a Columbus startup has ambitions to take its analytics to other industries.
Triple Whale Inc. has more than 2,500 Shopify merchants as clients and is growing by about 30% every month in just one year in business, co-founder and COO Maxx Blank said.
"When you have product-market fit, you feel it," co-founder and CEO AJ Orbach told Columbus Business First.
While Triple Whale's current focus is e-commerce, he said, the technology eventually can translate to any business automating the collection and analysis of data.
"We’re looking at automating a lot of the tedious tasks people do on their computers every day," Orbach said.
Triple Whale closed its $24 million Series A round last week, led by Elephant, a Boston VC firm founded by Warby Parker veteran Andrew Hunt. Business First previously reported on the round based on regulatory filings.
The round will go toward hiring. Now at 45 employees, the company expects to triple jobs over the coming 18 months.
"It’s a massive opportunity," Blank said. "We’re leading the way right now, and we want to continue to lead the way. There’s a lot to build."
The startup raised previously undisclosed rounds over the past year: $2.7 million in seed funding led by NFX, which has offices in San Francisco and Israel, and $1 million from individuals led by San Francisco serial entrepreneur Shaan Puri.
Gigi Levy-Weiss, NFX general partner, and Hunt have joined Triple Whale's board.
"Of my hundreds of early-stage startup investments, Triple Whale is one of the fastest-growing and most exciting companies I’ve ever worked with," Levy-Weiss said in a release.
Digital eyewear giant Warby Parker needed something like Triple Whale, Hunt said in the release.
"Access to real-time operating performance metrics still remains a challenge for brands," he said. "We think the Triple Whale team is uniquely positioned to solve this problem. We speak with thousands of companies every year here at Elephant and rarely see this type of distinct product-market fit."
As directors, the investors bring valuable connections to "dream brands" in e-commerce and experience leading tech businesses that grew to thousands of employees, Blank and Orbach said.
"(Levy-Weiss) has deep knowledge in building a SaaS company," Blank said. "We needed that. We still need it."
Blank, a Columbus native who moved to Israel to work in its thriving tech startup industry after graduating from Ohio University, previously started an online off-campus rental directory before founding an e-commerce brand with his wife selling hair extensions and accessories.
Orbach, his neighbor in Jerusalem who had built a subscription software business, started working for Blank a few years ago to build the analytics software that would become Triple Whale.
"We built it for ourselves first – which led us to a solution that a lot of other people in the marketplace could use as well," Blank said. "We wanted to create an application that served you the analytics you need that are most relevant to your store."
They brought on CTO Ivan Chernykh, who's worked with Orbach in startups for six years. Blank moved back to Columbus a few years ago, and Orbach followed him.
"The community here is pretty magical," Orbach said. "The weather is not great, I won't lie, but the people are amazing."
Most of the leadership and staff are in Central Ohio, while Chernykh leads the engineering team in Jerusalem. The company has satellites in Austin and Raleigh, North Carolina.
Triple Whale's rapid growth out of the gate surprised them all. The company leaned heavily on the close-knit and active Twitter community of independent online retailers, and landed sales through direct messaging.
The partners swapped titles when it became clear this was a software business more than an e-commerce one. The Blanks have shut down their retail business.
"I was his boss; he's now my boss – we switched roles," Blank said. "Whatever works for the business, we’re going to do."
The three leaders also want to infuse the entire company with the positivity, transparency and trust they've built in their friendship. Chernykh turned down a CTO job offer from another company when Triple Whale was still getting under way.
"The friendship goes deep in every aspect," Orbach said.
"People ask if we’re brothers," Blank said.
