Two co-founders with a former exit have struck success again.
Reptrics, a Tampa-based company founded in 2019, has received a $600,000 investment from TampaBay.Ventures. It is part of a $1 million seed round, which Reptrics is in the process of closing.
The company initially focused on retail small and medium businesses before pivoting to business-to-business software-as-a-service companies. Users can manage their customer experience data and become proactive in growth opportunities.
“Organizations didn’t have good visibility in regard to what customers were saying about them,” said Kevin Goodwin, Reptrics CEO. “You have all the systems giving them data, but you couldn’t put it in one easy-to-read reporting capability and take action on that.”
Reptrics was founded by Goodwin and Zack Simon, who previously founded Colorado-based US Based Techs, which was acquired in 2014.
Reptrics makes the seventh investment for TampaBay.Ventures, which focuses solely on investing in local companies. It also marks the firm crossing over $3 million invested.
“Reptrics provided an exciting opportunity for the TampaBay.Ventures team to pursue a company within the customer success space, a vertical we have been extremely excited by,” said Andreas Calabrese, general partner at TampaBay.Ventures, in a statement. “As new customer acquisition becomes more challenging and expensive for software businesses, retaining their current users becomes of paramount importance. ... Kevin and his team at Reptrics have the experience in running global customer success functions, which we believe is a prerequisite for success.”
The company has 13 employees, with roughly one-third of them in Tampa, another third in its satellite office in Utah, and the remainder working across the country.
While the company is still closing its seed round, it plans to pursue a Series A for an undisclosed amount at the end of 2023 or the beginning of 2024.
“There’s a great ecosystem of VC and seed funding environment in Tampa Bay,” Goodwin said. “With Silicon Valley, it’s usually a one-time conversation [with investors)]and then they’re done. Versus the Tampa Bay ecosystem, it’s very much, ‘Keep us posted, and when the time is right, we’ll invest.’”
While the company is still relatively new, Goodwin has grand plans — with less of an exit strategy and more of a billion-dollar idea.
“This one is long term; we feel we have a very robust software that has a unicorn opportunity,” Goodwin said.
It’s more of a possibility for Tampa Bay-based companies. Cybersecurity firm ReliaQuest hit the $1 billion status in December 2021, and on Monday, Tampa-based water bottle company Cirkul joined the unicorn club. Goodwin, who’s had experience in the Tampa tech scene ranging from Malwarebytes to Vector Solutions to the Tampa Bay Wave, believes it’s possible for Reptrics, too.
“Tampa is absolutely an amazing ecosystem to be able to grow,” he said. “Between Utah and Tampa, those are two upcoming ecosystems with great talent. You look at Silicon Valley, which some see as dying, but here we have such exciting growth.”
