Nudge announces $1.1m pre-seed and launches agentic commerce platform pitched at consumer brands
AI shopping startup Nudge has launched its Agentic Commerce Platform and announced $1.1 million in pre-seed funding. Investors include s16vc (a fund backed by the founders of Miro, Datadog, and Intercom), Antler, and operators from Shopify, Nutanix, and Postman.
The platform gives commerce brands a single system to measure AI visibility, enrich product catalogues for agent recommendations, and convert AI discovery into revenue.
“Shopping is becoming a conversation. People ask AI platforms what to buy and get an answer back with a list of recommendations to choose from," says Kanishka Thakur, Co-founder and CEO at Nudge. "Every brand needs an ongoing read of how shoppers describe them in AI conversations and which products surface in answers. But the real differentiation is going from search to action: closing the conversion gap between AI discovery and purchase. Being recommended is the start. Being bought is the win."
Early customers include a health nutrition brand and a large footwear brand, with active deployments across apparel, beauty, food and beverage, and wellness brands.
“LLMs are unlocking a new era of personalisation, both for humans and for AI agents acting on their behalf. What impressed us most about the founders is not just the vision, but the speed at which they learn, iterate, and execute. In rapidly evolving markets, founder velocity is often the most important predictor of success” says Aleks Shamis, Co-Founder & Managing Partner, s16vc.
Nudge says it will use the funding to expand its GTM and engineering teams, deepen integration with commerce specific agent protocols including ACP and UCP, and advance the AI architecture that powers catalogue enrichment and funnel personalisation at scale.
Kanishka Thakur and Gaurav Rawat, co-founders of Nudge, started building products out of college. They previously built Klutchh, an esports platform, and scaled it to 100,000 users, until the deeper problem they kept running into pushed them to pivot: personalising user experiences at scale. Enter Nudge.
2026 RTIH Innovation Awards
AI will be a key focus area at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards.
The awards are now open for entries and celebrate global retail technology innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.
Our winners will be revealed at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards Ceremony, taking place at The HAC in Central London on Wednesday, 4th November.
Check out our 2025 winners here.
Our 2025 hall of fame entrants were revealed during a sold out event which took place at The HAC on 16th October and consisted of a drinks reception, three course meal, and awards ceremony presided over by award winning comedian, actress and writer Tiff Stevenson.
In his welcome speech, Scott Thompson, Founder and Editor, RTIH, said: “This is the awards’ fifth year as a physical event. We started off with just 30 people at the South Place Hotel not far from here, then moved to London Bridge Hotel, then The Barbican, and last year RIBA’s HQ in the West End.”
“But I’m conscious of the fact that, to quote the legend that is Taylor Swift, You’re only as hot as your last hit, baby. So, this year we’ve moved to our biggest venue yet, and also pulled in our largest number of entries to date and broken attendance records.”
He added: “This year’s submissions have without doubt been our best yet. To quote one of the judges: The examples of innovative developments across both traditional and digital retail spaces were truly remarkable.”
Congratulations to our winners, and a big thank you to our sponsors, judging panel, the legend that is Tiff Stevenson, and all those who attended our 2025 gathering.
