Compare Metrics, the leading provider of Adaptive Commerce navigation and discovery tools, today announced it has secured $3.8 million in follow-on financing. The financing is again led by Austin Ventures with additional funding by existing investors Julie Allegro of Allegro Venture Partners, Bob Greene of Contour Ventures, Capital Factory, Mike Maples Jr. of Floodgate, Brett Hurt of Hurt Family Investments and independent investors Ralph Mack and Adam Ross. This brings the company's total amount of funding to $8 million. This latest funding will be used to drive continued product and company growth. The company's client services and product development teams will continue to expand, extending the capabilities of Compare Metrics' Adaptive Commerce solution to help retailers find more ways to create inspirational and memorable shopping experiences.

The Compare Metrics solution offers a more 'humanized' approach to online product discovery, allowing consumers to use their own natural language to express personal preferences and style, rather than terminology driven by standardized merchandising categories and keywords. The tool understands and quickly reacts to what consumers want, resulting in increased shopper engagement and conversion, as well as improved relevancy and efficiency in demand generation and marketing strategies. A core element of the technology is a dedicated Content Curation team that manually searches for more 'human-centric' product criteria and tags it to products, adding a whole new layer of merchandising data.

Compare Metrics received $4.2 million in first-round financing in May 2013 and has since experienced accelerated growth and garnered a wealth of industry recognition. In less than 12 months, the company has achieved the following milestones:

New hires and office growth - Compare Metrics has gone from nine full-time employees to 32, and looks to continue that strong growth rate in 2014. The company has tripled the part-time Content Curator team to keep pace with new client launches and the human-curated merchandising data needed to power the Adaptive Commerce solution. Additionally, Compare Metrics expanded into larger office space in 2013 to accommodate its growing team.
Retail client launches - Retailers are quickly learning that the Compare Metrics solution can help them gain invaluable new insights about how their shoppers think and make buying decisions. As a result, Compare Metrics has launched Adaptive Navigation for top retailers Fresh Pair, Lenovo, Rebecca Minkoff and The Wasserstrom Co., as well as other Internet Retailer 500 companies.
Positive retail client results - Client results are proving that a more relevant and differentiated product discovery experience drives better results. On average, the Content Curation team typically adds 3-4x new merchandising attributes per product to fuel more 'humanized' navigation options. This has led to higher engagement rates than legacy navigation. Additionally, the company has reported up to 200% higher conversions for those shoppers who discover products through Adaptive Navigation versus shoppers who use standard navigation.

'It has been exciting to watch the journey of the Compare Metrics team from a three-person start-up to the high-growth and maturing company that it is today. This follow-on investment is indicative of the company's progress in proving out their market value,' said Chris Pacitti, General Partner, Austin Ventures. 'Retail client results have again validated our original confidence in the company's potential, and I look forward to watching their continued success going forward.'

'Compare Metrics continues to make positive waves in the industry as we strive to help retailers 'put the person' back in personalization and create more shopper-driven online discovery experiences for their customers,' said Garrett Eastham, CEO, Compare Metrics. 'To have Austin Ventures take the lead in our follow-on funding is an honor and a critical affirmation to the progress we have made as a company.'

The follow-on funding is an inside round. No changes will be made to the Compare Metrics board structure.

About Compare Metrics

Compare Metrics is the platform behind today's most inspired shopping experiences. Compare Metrics' Adaptive Commerce solutions empower shoppers to think, discover, compare and decide as they do in the real world, using their own words and preferences to confidently discover the right product. Adaptive Commerce solutions from Compare Metrics understand and react to what consumers want, resulting in increased shopper engagement and conversion, as well as improved relevancy and efficiency in demand generation and marketing strategies. The company is led by a team that combines extensive experience in retail technology with disruptive innovations that push the boundaries of machine learning and natural language processing. For more information, visit www.comparemetrics.com.