Much like a Fitbit's ability to track fitness progress, Denver's Yaguara is helping ecommerce and retail businesses track and meet growth goals. But, instead of monitoring heart rate and calories burned, the company has gathered vital business figures all in one place.
A year and a half after it publicly launched, the startup has brought on major capital to build out its product and double its team.
The $7.2 million seed round was led by Jonathan Ehrlich at Foundation Capital, with participation from Gradient, Rainfall Ventures, and Zelkova, as well as founders of Warby Parker, Harry’s, Allbirds and a former C-level executive from Glossier.
Yaguara's platform aligns insights and metrics across departments to help ecommerce businesses understand their performance in real-time. It also provides predictive, prescriptive recommendations that improve metrics based on those insights.
Companies can create growth goals on Yaguara’s online platform, it then provides users the tasks needed to achieve these goals, tracking their data in real time to make sure they are getting tasks done on deadline.
The funds from this round will primarily be used to grow Yaguara's team, co-founder and CEO Jonathan Smalley told Colorado Inno.
The company had seven employees prior to the round and now employs 18 across Denver and Yaguara's strategic office in New York City.
"The plan is to double that and be in the 35 to 40 range by the end of the year," he said.
With the recent influx of Bay Area tech companies that have opened Denver offices, Smalley said Yaguara has seen its own benefit in the city's growing tech ecosystem.
"There’s more talent in Denver than ever before, which has been incredible for us," he said, adding that he's hopeful for local venture funding to catch up with Colorado's growing startup scene.
Given the current coronavirus epidemic and its impact on spending, Smalley said the company is looking for ways it can better serve its customers and that Yaguara prides itself on building its product with its customers and not just for them.
"We’ve seen a huge opportunity to empower end users with direct to consumer data, as well as with traditional retail brands that have to understand what its like to become a digital business," he said.
To date, Yaguara has worked with over 250 companies, including Ned, Urbanstems and arfa.
