Naver invests in e-commerce data startup

Naver D2 Startup Factory has made a follow-on investment in local e-commerce data startup Datarize, the IT giant said Wednesday.

Stonebridge Ventures led the series A funding of Datarize with co-investments from Weventures, Korea Development Bank and Mirae Asset Venture Investment. The total funding amounted to 11.5 billion won ($9.6 million). Naver D2 Startup Factory had previously taken part in the seed investment of Datarize in 2020.

Datarize developed an all-in-one growth solution for online shopping malls by thoroughly evaluating and analyzing e-commerce websites to realize the automation of marketing based on customer action data.

Since the startup launched the solution in 2020, the number of Datarize’s customers jumped by 20 times in a year with a 98 percent resubscription rate. The customers who applied Datarize’s automatizing solution saw an average of 10 percent increase in their sales.

“Datarize is not just providing fragmentary services, but meaningfully enhancing the entire process of data collection, data process and data analysis as well as marketing action and improvement for customers,” said Kim Seong-moo, CEO of Datarize.

“We will become a growth solution for all e-commerce that need data utilization.”

Based on its performance in the domestic market, Datarize plans to go abroad by targeting the North American market through leading e-commerce platform Shopify and expanding services for various web builder platforms and independent malls.

“Datarize, which has been with us since 2012, is a team with unrivaled capabilities and experiences in analyzing large amounts of e-commerce data to lead an uptick in numbers,” said Yang Sang-hwan, leader of Naver D2 Startup Factory.

“In the e-commerce market, which is entering maturity, the next topic for the continued growth of sellers will be the advancement of data-based growth solutions. Datarize is expected to grow into a leading company in that regard.”

Launched in 2015 as Naver’s startup accelerator, Naver D2 Startup Factory has pushed for exchanges and cooperation with startups specialized in various fields of technology.

By Kan Hyeong-woo (hwkan@heraldcorp.com)