Checkmate Infused With $5 Million in Seed Funding
Checkmate, which is a personalized smart shopping tool aimed at making it easy for users to discover brands, apply savings and manage their orders post-purchase, said it secured $5 million in a seed funding round led by Fuel Capital. The company said in a statement that it will use the new investment “to accelerate its product development and customer growth.”
Checkmate said other investors in the round include Kevin Johnson, the former CEO of Ebates at Rakuten, f7 Ventures, Blackbird Ventures, Scribble Ventures, Hyper and Susa Ventures. Other participants in the funding round include Liquid 2 Ventures, which was founded by NFL Hall of Famer Joe Montana; Wischoff Ventures; Exits Capital; Night Capital; Ancestry chief executive officer Deborah Liu; Firstbase CEO Chris Herd, and XMTP cofounder and president Shane Mac.
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The company said consumers typically are inundated with personalized email deals from brands “that it’s tough to manage them all and remember to apply each deal at checkout.” As a solution, Checkmate is available as both a mobile app/extension and laptop extension and “is the first solution that gathers all the best deals from a user’s personal email and the web and automatically applies them at checkout to help smart shoppers save the most they can.”
Harry Dixon, CEO and cofounder of Checkmate, said with record-high inflation, economic uncertainty, and a volatile stock market, “consumers are looking to save wherever they can. At the same time, skyrocketing digital ad costs mean retailers and brands need new ways to establish and build their own customer relationships. We’re extremely proud to partner with this prestigious group of investors as we roll out a delightful product that helps smart shoppers save while helping brands drive conversion and loyalty.”
Regarding the value proposition for brands, Checkmate serves as a powerful conversion engine that also helps businesses attract targeted audiences and build long-term relationships with their customers. “In a testing phase, users engaged with Checkmate 3.5 times per week and saved more than 27 percent, on average, when purchasing, versus roughly 15 percent with traditional savings apps,” the company noted.
“In the face of continually rising customer acquisition costs, most [direct-to-consumer] companies have invested in personalized marketing to deepen their relationships with their existing customers and discover new ones,” said Chris Howard, founding partner at Fuel Capital. “Checkmate is a tool purpose-built to respond to current market dynamics and provide significant value to brands. We’re highly confident in the Checkmate team and are excited to support the company as it continues to provide significant value to brands and marketing teams.”
The company said its convenient dashboard also stores and manages users’ gift cards and tracks all their orders, “so they can see exactly when their packages will arrive at their doorstep. In addition, users can opt to have Checkmate generate a first-of-its-kind ‘ghost email inbox’ with just one click. Checkmate will then create a new email address on the back end and sign it up to the top 100 retail and brand mailing lists, so users can collect thousands of personalized deals without having their own inboxes filled with offers. Checkmate then automatically applies any relevant deals from the inbox for users while they shop to ensure they save the most they can, with no extra effort on their part.”
