As per Statista, the global e-commerce market, valued at $3.6 trillion in 2023, is projected to surpass $5.6 trillion by 2027. Furthermore, e-commerce’s share of retail sales is expected to account for nearly one-fourth of all retail sales by 2026, with the current share being around 20%.
Finnish e-commerce disruptor Starcart’s unique AI-powered technology positions the company to capitalise on this significant market potential.
Now, Starcart has announced the successful completion of its seed funding round by raising €3.5 million. The round was led by Nordic early-stage investor Inventure (which invested in Steep and Hedera Dx), with participation by prominent Finnish angel investors and Business Finland. The round also includes a €400K D loan from Business Finland.
With the new funding, Starcart will expand its reach internationally, with launches in multiple new European markets planned for 2024. Additionally, the funding will be used to scale up Starcart’s unique AI-powered shopping platform, adding hundreds of new stores to Starcart.
“Over the past two decades, online shopping has surged in popularity, but it has also become much more time-consuming for consumers. The vast amount of products and stores available online means that people must navigate through a huge amount of options when buying anything. Starcart was created to solve this problem, and to make online shopping easy and enjoyable,” shared Pasi Ilola, Founder and CEO of Starcart.
“Starcart’s insane metrics speak for themselves. The potential here is absolutely enormous, and the Starcart team is well on their way to rebuild and redefine the online shopping experience in Europe,” said Lauri Kokkila, Partner at Inventure and an early-investor in the company.
AI-powered shopping platform
Founded in 2022 by Pasi Ilola in Finland, Starcart’s unique AI-powered shopping platform allows people to buy any product from any store, with just one shopping cart. Also, its AI technology automatically provides shoppers with the best prices, shipping rates and product availability for any purchase.
Starcart completely removes the workload of comparing prices, finding availability and completing checkouts, by allowing consumers to just select the products they want to buy, and having Starcart do the rest. This model is similar to travel aggregators that allow consumers to find the best flight or hotel deals within one platform.
Its AI is used for over 15 million products from over 130 stores, while automatically making the purchases for the consumers.
Since its launch, Starcart has gained explosive traction, resulting in more than a tenfold sales volume increase in the past six months, and ongoing double-digit monthly growth.
