Returnly Raises $8M Series A
Returnly, the post-purchase payments company for retailers and brands that care about customer loyalty, today announced that it has raised $8 million in Series A funding. In addition, the company announced that it secured a credit facility that will enable it to finance over $300 million in repurchases made by shoppers returning products online to merchants in the Returnly network.
The funding round was led by inside investors Mundi Ventures and The Venture City, with participation from Novel TMT Ventures and CoVenture. In addition, CoVenture supplied Returnly with the line of credit and together, these two financing vehicles position the company to help its merchant partners – including Fanatics, UNTUCKit, Outdoor Voices, and The Greats – strategically address the $150 billion market for ecommerce returns. As part of these concurrent financing events, Rajeev Singh-Molares from Mundi Ventures is joining Returnly’s board of directors.
Returnly partners with retailers and brands to elevate the online shopping experience and remove the product returns friction altogether. Returnly lets shoppers buy again using return credit before shipping the original items back and settles the new order in real-time, taking the product risk. The company has developed a turn-key solution around its core post-purchase payments technology that includes returns management tools for large scale retailers as well as hosted and fully brandable end-customer touchpoints like order and returns tracking, online returns and exchanges.
“Product returns is a moment of truth in a brand relationship with its customers,” said Eduardo Vilar, founder and CEO of Returnly. “Modern consumers don’t want to be exposed to the clunky reverse logistics processes that come into play when returning products online. After processing returns worth hundreds of millions of dollars, we’ve learned that removing this friction creates loyal, repeat customers. The challenge for brands is that they can’t assess their shoppers behavior until a return is processed at the distribution center and as a result, cannot offer shoppers the instant gratification and seamless returns experience they expect. This is where we come in.”
In the two years since launching, Returnly has developed relationships with hundreds of merchant partners and issued more than $100 million in returns credit to end-customers. The new financing and line of credit will allow Returnly to onboard larger merchants and integrate its platform with other reverse logistics, e-commerce, loyalty and CRM platforms.
“Any bank or credit organization can lend to shoppers based on a credit rating – and many are already doing that to help increase shopping cart conversions. But one thing that’s unique about Returnly is its understanding of individual shopper post-purchase behavior that powers its lending decisions. Returnly is leveraging proprietary data and machine learning to make the right underwriting decisions in real-time,” said Ali Hamed, partner at CoVenture.
“No one else has ever offered ecommerce returns financing before. And with its proven solution and the ability to now underwrite hundreds-of-millions in gross merchandise value every year, Returnly has positioned itself to continue leading and innovating in the post-purchase payments space,” added Brian Harwitt, VP at CoVenture.
In the U.S. alone, shoppers are expected to spend over $600 billion in online purchases in 2019, as the ecommerce market grows steadily at about 15 percent year-over-year. While return rates vary depending upon product types, 25-30 percent of online purchases are returned on average, nearly three times higher than offline purchases. This creates a significant opportunity for retailers that leverage Returnly to create competitive advantage by giving customers what they want — a fast and seamless returns experience.
“Our goal is to create a simple customer experience at every step – from discovery through return” said Alex Llewellyn, Head of Customer Experience at Outdoor Voices. “With Returnly, we’re able provide a positive returns experience that goes beyond the traditional transaction to delight customers and build loyalty for our brand.”
