Index, a software and payment solution provider for retail merchants, announced last week that it has secured $19 million in Series B financing. The funding round was led by General Catalyst, with participation from Rob Gierkink, executive-in-residence at General Catalyst. Gierkink was the founder of Datalogix, a leading consumer intelligence company.
Founded in 2012 by Google Wallet co-founder Jonathan Wall and former product lead Marc Freed-Finnegan, Index aims to bring e-commerce advantages such as purchase-based targeting, personalization and loyalty rewards to brick-and-mortar stores. Using Index’s payment processing software system, merchants can set up customer profiles based on unique payment cards to track customer activity and shopping history via all shopping channels, online and offline. With these insights, retailers can then deliver personalized content and offers to drive in-store traffic and repeat purchase via opt-in email and text communications.
Index received $7 million in Series A funding in 2013, which it has used to sign up a broad range of established retailers, including American Apparel, The Fresh Market and Tender Greens. The new $19 million financing will be used to develop Index’s retail partner network as well as to fund growth of its engineering, product and business teams.
David Fialkow, co-founder and managing director of General Catalyst, will join Index’s board of directors; Gierkink will be the board’s new chairman. Fiaklow and Gierkink bring deep expertise in cross-channel consumer intelligence, which will supplement the transaction and ecommerce expertise of Index’s founders. “Marc and Jonathan have established Index as an emerging leader in a space we know well through our experience growing Datalogix with Rob,” said Fiaklow in an official statement put out by Index. “We are thrilled to collaborate with the Index team and again with Rob to shape the next generation of commerce.”