Monocle

Company Overview

Monocle is an AI-powered promotions operating system that helps brands manage, analyze, and optimize their incentive strategies. Founded in 2023, the company aims to bring sophisticated machine learning algorithms for discounting and pricing strategies, previously only available to large tech companies, to smaller businesses. Monocle is headquartered in the United States and serves the e-commerce industry.

Products Overview

Monocle’s platform offers the following key capabilities:

1. AI-powered incentive decision-making: Uses causal AI to determine the optimal offer for each customer based on consumer behavior, brand margins, and contextual data.

2. Dynamic offers across channels: Enables personalized offers in email, SMS, and on-site campaigns.

3. Comprehensive incentive analytics: Provides real-time visibility into the performance of incentive spend across channels, including tracking the incremental effect of incentives.

4. Customizable campaign management: Allows brands to define their offer set and easily modify discount strategies across multiple channels.

5. Integration with existing systems: Seamlessly connects to site assets and email/SMS platforms to automatically inject selected offers into the right delivery system.

6. No-code implementation: Offers a user-friendly interface that doesn’t require coding knowledge to use effectively.

Founding Team

Monocle was founded by Noam Szpiro (Co-Founder & CEO) and Mark Lotman (Co-Founder & COO). Both founders have experience working on incentives and pricing at major tech companies like Lyft, Instacart, McKinsey, and Stripe.

Problem and Market Fit

Monocle addresses the challenge faced by e-commerce brands in optimizing their promotion strategies. While large tech companies have sophisticated AI-driven systems for personalized discounting, smaller companies often lack the resources to build such capabilities in-house. Monocle aims to bridge this gap by providing an accessible platform that brings advanced incentive optimization to a broader range of businesses.

Business Model

Monocle operates on a SaaS (Software as a Service) model, providing its AI-powered incentive platform to e-commerce businesses. While specific pricing details are not provided, the company likely charges based on usage or a subscription model.

Funding and Runway

On April 9, 2024, Monocle announced a $7.5 million seed funding round led by F2 Venture Capital. This round marks the company’s emergence from stealth mode. Additional details about previous funding or current runway are not provided in the available information.

Competitive Landscape

While specific competitors are not mentioned, Monocle positions itself as a solution for companies that cannot afford to build in-house teams for sophisticated discounting and pricing strategies. The company likely competes with other marketing technology providers and customer analytics platforms in the e-commerce space.

Customers

Monocle works with several high-growth e-commerce brands, including:

1. The Perfect Jean
2. Death Wish Coffee
3. Honeylove
4. Brunt
5. Nala
6. Mila
7. Hulken
8. Duradry
9. Underoutfit
10. Twillory

Case studies highlight significant improvements for these customers, such as: - Hulken: 20% increase in Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) - Nala: 46% increase in ARPU - Death Wish Coffee: 40% increase in Conversion Rate (CVR) - Honeylove: 20% increase in ARPU - The Perfect Jean: 30% increase in revenue from abandonment flows - Underoutfit: 35% increase in CVR across all flows - Twillory: 37% increase in repeat customer CVR

Relevant News

• April 9, 2024: Monocle announced a $7.5 million seed funding round led by F2 Venture Capital, marking its official launch out of stealth mode.

• The company has been actively expanding its team, with job openings in various roles as it scales its operations.

• Monocle has been publishing case studies and thought leadership content, including interviews with industry leaders like Kyle Hency (Chubbies co-founder) and Michael Preysman (Everlane founder) on topics related to e-commerce growth and customer retention strategies.