Nozzle.ai secures £2 million Seed investment led by Parkwalk Advisors
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Safiya Marzook
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Nozzle.ai raises $2.6m to accelerate adoption of AI platform with brands and sellers on Amazon
UCL machine learning spinout already counts more than 100 customers including major multinational brands and agencies
London, 18 November 2020 – Nozzle.ai, an eCommerce and advertising optimisation platform for Amazon, has raised $2.6 million (£2 million) in funding from Parkwalk Advisors, The Angel CoFund (ACF), UCL Technology Fund (UCLTF), and a syndicate of eCommerce-expert angel investors. The funding will accelerate the company’s growth as it attracts major international brands and agencies to its proprietary AI platform.
Nozzle.ai, a spinout of UCL’s Computer Science Department, was designed by data scientists and Amazon experts to help brands maximise sales and share category and advertising performance on Amazon. Using the rich transactional and media data sets available through Amazon’s API ecosystem, Nozzle.ai provides companies with operational efficiencies, deep insights and delivers continuous media spend optimisation and sales performance across Amazon’s entire ad tech stack. This helps sellers and retailers drive market share and profitability on Amazon.
UCL is internationally recognised for its strength in AI and has a strong record in spinning out very successful start-ups, not least DeepMind which was wholly acquired by Alphabet in 2015.
The $2.6 million in funding will go towards expanding the team across all business functions and the further development of Nozzle.ai’s product offering (advertising audit, customer analytics and advertising bid management) accelerating adoption among sellers, brands and their agencies.
Victor Malachard, Nozzle.ai Co-Founder and Executive Chairman said:
“This funding will help us reach new retailers and further support our existing clients in addressing the challenges and opportunities of selling and advertising in a competitive and fast-growing marketplace. The application of machine learning, and the fusion of transactional data with media data, brings brands huge advantage in the Amazon environment, extracting maximum commercial value and sales performance. Our platform is at the forefront of unlocking this potential for international retailers.”
All three Nozzle.ai products are already in commercial use with more than 100 customers, including major multinational brands and leading agencies including Omnicom Media Group and Interpublic Group agencies Reprise and J3.
Nozzle.ai customer Achal Patel, co-founder & CEO of Valumeds and Cabinet Health, commented:
“Amazon is our most important sales channel and as a modernised, sustainable over-the-counter medicine brand we were looking for a partner who could help us better understand our customers and give us the analysis to take our business to the next level. Working with our Valumeds’ Amazon data, Nozzle.ai has helped us understand our customer lifetime value and our customers’ repeat purchase journeys across our product range. This has allowed us to calculate an accurate breakeven ACoS, re-allocate advertising and SEO budgets and run Amazon PPC campaigns more aggressively, knowing we can outspend competitors and gain market share whilst still being profitable. It has also given us the confidence to launch our new premium brand on Amazon – Cabinet.”
Neil Cameron, Investment Director at Parkwalk, the lead investor in the funding round, said:
“Nozzle.ai technology is using the application of machine learning to revolutionise the e-commerce space. The early success of Nozzle.ai gives our team great confidence in its continued success. We are excited to be involved in this next stage of growth both in expanding their team and building up their product offering to accelerate adoption internationally.”
Tim Mills, Managing Partner of ACF said:
“Nozzle.ai is a great example of a UK company using advanced data science to create a strong product offering that delivers unparalleled value to users. Working closely with sellers, brands and agencies it enhances their level of retail intelligence on the Amazon platform and provides a layer of technology the extends beyond anything previously available. This unique offering has already seen brilliant market traction and with this funding has the potential to expand in the international eCommerce market.”
David Grimm, Investment Director at UCLTF said:
“Nozzle.ai have used their deep understanding of data engineering and machine learning to wring incredible insight out of disparate datasets. We have been highly impressed with the value this is creating for their customers, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic when Nozzle.ai algorithms helped clients identify and respond to the rapidly changing consumer behaviours. We are delighted to continue supporting them as they enter the next stage of growth”.
About Nozzle.ai
Nozzle.ai is an eCommerce and advertising optimization platform for Amazon, headquartered in London. A spin out of UCL’s Computer Science Department that specialises in ecommerce and online advertising research. Nozzle.ai combines top machine learning experts from within the world-leading computing science academic faculty with proven experienced Amazon specialists and business leaders in tech. The Nozzle.ai platform helps sellers, brands and agencies across the globe drive the business metrics that are most important, from sales or new to brand customers to profitability growth. The Nozzle.ai product suite of audit, analytics and activation (bid management) are offered as both a managed and SAAS products.
Please visit nozzle.ai for more information.
About Parkwalk
Parkwalk is the largest growth EIS fund manager, backing world-changing technologies emerging from the UK’s leading universities and research institutions. With £300m of assets under management, it has invested in over 120 companies across its flagship Parkwalk Opportunities EIS Fund as well as the award-winning enterprise and innovation funds Parkwalk manages for the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Bristol. Parkwalk invests in businesses creating solutions to real-world challenges, with IP-protected innovations, across a range of sectors including life sciences, AI, quantum computing, advanced materials, genomics, cleantech, future of mobility, MedTech and big data.
About the Angel CoFund
Launched in 2011, the Angel CoFund (ACF) is a privately managed and commercially focused institution that works alongside groups of sector focussed business angels to invest in high potential SMEs across the UK, directly providing funding as well as encouraging the expansion and development of the business angel market. To date the ACF has supported more than 90 companies (for example Ebury, Gousto, Form3, Creo Medical and Spoke) providing more than £50 million in direct investment alongside more than £2500m from business angels and other investors, making it one of the most active early stage investors in the country. The ACF is a long-term investor and, in aggregate, sets aside £1 of further capital for every £1 it invests. This model gives portfolio companies and co-investors the support they need to propel strong growth.To find out more, please visit angelcofund.co.uk
About UCL Technology Fund (UCLTF)
The UCL Technology Fund is dedicated to investing in intellectual property commercialisation opportunities arising from University College London’s world-class research base. It is managed by AlbionVC in collaboration with UCL Business (UCLB). The Fund supports UCL in achieving the full potential of innovations that have prospects for outstanding societal and market impact, right through the development journey from initial proof of concept to practical commercial application.
About AlbionVC
AlbionVC helps build the future of enterprise and healthcare. With 20+ years’ experience in technology investments, the team focus on B2B software and healthcare at Series A. AlbionVC manages c.£500m of venture funds, currently invested in over 50 companies. AlbionVC is the technology investment arm of Albion Capital Group LLP, which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.
About UCL Business (UCLB)
UCL Business Ltd (UCLB), part of UCL Innovation & Enterprise, is the commercialisation company for UCL. Working with UCL’s globally renowned faculties and associated hospitals; University College London Hospitals, Moorfields Eye Hospital, Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and the Royal Free London Hospital, it brings together exceptional ideas, innovations and industry to benefit society and the economy.UCLB’s track record of success includes over £1.5 billion raised in investment for UCL spinouts, and its Portico Ventures Programme is enabling the next wave of technology-based businesses to thrive in a fast-moving ecosystem. Its fund offerings – Apollo Therapeutics (in partnership with leading UK universities and pharmaceutical companies), UCL Technology Fund, and Social Ventures fund – help to bring pioneering technologies from the laboratory to market, enabling academic entrepreneurs to tackle global challenges, from energy and engineering to healthcare and the environment.
About UCL Innovation & Enterprise
UCL is among the top three universities in the UK for translating its knowledge and know-how externally to benefit society (HEBCI 2018/19). The team of experts at UCL Innovation & Enterprise help connect our academics with businesses, Government and not-for-profits, to help solve complex challenges. This can include providing consultancy, developing partnerships and commercialising discoveries.
Find out more at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/enterprise / Follow us on Twitter @UCLEnterprise
About UCL – London’s Global University
UCL is a diverse community with the freedom to challenge and think differently.Our community of more than 41,500 students from 150 countries and over 12,500 staff pursues academic excellence, breaks boundaries and makes a positive impact on real world problems.We are consistently ranked among the top 10 universities in the world and are one of only a handful of institutions rated as having the strongest academic reputation and the broadest research impact.We have a progressive and integrated approach to our teaching and research – championing innovation, creativity and cross-disciplinary working. We teach our students how to think, not what to think, and see them as partners, collaborators and contributors. For almost 200 years, we are proud to have opened higher education to students from a wide range of backgrounds and to change the way we create and share knowledge.We were the first in England to welcome women to university education and that courageous attitude and disruptive spirit is still alive today. We are UCL.
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