Returnly.com, a startup that enables online merchants and marketplaces to provide the best in class online returns experience, is announcing today a $3.25M seed round, active partnerships and a growing customer base.

Returnly provides a hosted and fully brandable online product returns platform that retailers can leverage to offer a streamlined returns experience. With Returnly, brands offer easy online returns, and eligible shoppers get Instant Refunds as store credit to buy again even before returning items. Returnly fronts consumers their money in the form of an online wallet that can be used for repurchases from the same brand. When shoppers buy with Instant Refunds, Returnly settles with merchants in real-time and takes on all product return and customer risk.

Managing and assessing this risk is a key differentiator for Returnly. The company founder and CEO, Eduardo Vilar, is a serial entrepreneur and actuary with a background in online payments, risk analysis and predictive models.

According to Eduardo Vilar, 'online returns have been broken since the early days of e-commerce. Asking shoppers to wait for a return to be processed before they're refunded is just a bad shopping experience. We are fixing this by fronting refunds and taking the return risk. We empower brands to offer a better returns experience, turning returners into hyper-loyal shoppers and lost sales into repurchases.'

The San Francisco Company must be doing something right because retail giant Fanatics, the global leader in licensed sports merchandise, has transitioned from peel-and-stick offline returns to an online return experience powered by Returnly. Fanatics VP of Enterprise Technology Systems, Jim Gruhn says, 'Transitioning to Returnly has helped Fanatics drastically lower customer support contacts while still providing a seamless, positively engaging returns experience for sport fans worldwide.'

US online sales are projected to reach $391 Billion this year, and returns represent approximately 30% of all e-commerce sales. Returnly's bet is that in this era of free shipping, same day delivery and instant gratification, Instant Refunds are soon to be part of online shoppers' expectations.

This hasn't gone unnoticed by the venture capital community, particularly those involved in the payments and retail verticals. Index Ventures' Danny Rimer, a Returnly investor, says, 'As more and more e-commerce brands start leveraging the returns experience as a competitive advantage, Returnly is well- positioned to help brands and marketplaces re-engage with shoppers at the time of return and create incremental commerce.' Other Returnly seed round investors include SV Angel, FJ Labs, Mundiventures and prominent Silicon Valley angel investors like Ariel Poler, who joined their Board of Directors.

The company, which already counts hundreds of paying customers, will use the proceeds to grow its team of engineers and arm more merchants with better returns and Instant Refunds this holiday season.