A Phoenix-based startup helping power the online resale market got a $24 million boost in its latest funding round, and it plans to convert that cash into further improvements into the “recommerce” market.
The latest funding comes in the form of equity and debt financing led by Silicon Valley investor Sierra Ventures. Origin Ventures, which led the company’s $3 funding raise in the summer of 2021, also participated this time around.
Hammoq is a software-as-a-service company that has built a platform to streamline the listing process so returns, overstocks, and other previously used products can be seen across more resale marketplaces.
The startup says it plans to accelerate the development of its artificial intelligence and machine learning technology, as well as make it easier for resellers to find financing and source their products.
The company said the online reselling market’s rapid growth is being fueled by a glut of online returns and the popularity of upcycled fashion and vintage items. But, they said, the time-consuming work of getting items in front of customers is costly and in need of the kind of automation Hammoq offers.
“The recommerce market is exploding, with the fashion resale market alone expected to reach $26 billion in 2022,” Hammoq CEO Sid Lunawat — who co-founded the company with Ty Blunt — said in a statement. “There are an abundance of resale marketplaces supporting this economy. Yet, the largest gap is in the labor required to identify product value and push it to the marketplaces. With rising labor costs, the need for automation in the reCommerce industry continues to grow. Using AI and machine learning, Hammoq has put a major dent in this labor gap, empowering its customers to automate the identification and listing process.”
Hammoq’s customers include Goodwill of the San Francisco Bay, which uses the platform to maximize the processing of donations, and reseller Flip the World, which says it has doubled its listings thanks to Hammoq.
Lunawat and Blunt both spent time running reseller businesses before deciding to develop the Hammoq platform. The company said it has automated the listings of over 600,000 products for sale since its founding in 2020.
The company has more than 400 employees worldwide, with 27 working in Phoenix. The new financing round will increase that headcount as Hammoq also expands its sales and marketing operations, with some of those jobs being in Phoenix, the company said.
Hammoq also said it plans to open a new warehouse facility in Phoenix to house and process high volumes of used items for listing digitization. The company said that last month alone it processed more than 2,000 pounds of clothes for resale and is expected to exponentially grow this volume in the coming months.
Sierra Ventures likes firm's approach
Sierra Ventures Partner Vignesh Ravikumar said Hammoq’s product and business model are aligned with the venture firm’s mission to invest early in emerging technology companies that are bringing improvements to key market areas.
“Hammoq is uniquely serving the exploding recommerce industry by applying technology to solve sellers’ largest challenge: intelligent, real-time listings,” Ravikumar said in a statement. “Their SaaS recommerce solution is delivering precisely what the rapidly transforming market needs as consumers actively seek ways to buy used products that support sustainability and reuse.”
