Online retail technology startup Nosto raises $16m to scale personalised site search solution

E-commerce tech startup, Nosto, has announced the closure of a $16 million funding round, from Mandatum Asset Management’s Growth Equity team (MAM GE).

Since its founding in 2011, Nosto’s technology has been tapped by over 2,500 brands such as Paul Smith, Kylie Cosmetics, Muji, Dermalogica, Centric Brands, and Princess Polly.

“Merchants using Nosto are growing quickly, and merchants using Nosto on the Shopify platform are growing quicker still,” says Jim Lofgren, CEO, Nosto.

“This investment will help us continue scaling our Commerce Experience Platform, supporting brands in their own growth ambitions. This fundraise represents a shared vision for the opportunities that lie ahead in the e-commerce space for both Nosto and our merchants.”

He adds: “Since launching site search natively within our platform, we’re uniquely positioned to disrupt the product discovery space. Not only are we leveraging recent developments in semantic search and natural language processing, but we’re also unlocking valuable search data that is often siloed within point solutions.”

“Giving brands the power to take search data and use it to inform their personalisation and merchandising strategies across the rest of the online experience, and vice versa, all within a single platform, means that data can be harnessed from anywhere and actioned everywhere. This creates a completely personalised experience for shoppers and a high-performing online store for brands.”

Upon closing the aforementioned transaction, Nosto has named MAM GE’s Rami Salonen as a board member.

“We are excited to partner with Nosto and accelerate their international operations,” says Salonen.

“The Nosto team has already shown that a customer-focused business model, enabled by strategic partnerships, truly creates sustainable value not only from the business perspective, but also for the end users.”

“We hope to support the team in its growth journey and enable the company to keep leading the way with best-in-class products that are praised by its customers.” 

“One of the key areas of current investments is our e-commerce search solution that utilises Nosto’s predictive intelligence and advanced merchandising tooling, allowing merchants to make every impression more relevant across the entire on-site experience,” says Juha Valvanne, Founder and Chief Corporate Development Officer, Nosto.

“There’s an urgent market need for intelligent and personalised search technology for e-commerce that allows merchants to meet their business goals.”

“This raise allows us to accelerate our innovation and continue developing our Commerce Experience Platform. It also empowers us to continue making more acquisitions.”

“Nosto is a profitable company, and we have made three acquisitions in 18 months. We continue to look for attractive acquisition targets to expand both market share and product offering.”