AllUnite, a Copenhagen, Denmark-based startup which offers free Internet and location-based marketing for retailers, raised €3m in Series A funding.
The round was led by European venture capital partnership, Northzone and Denmark’s largest grocery chain retailer, Coop., which joined existing investor Christian Stadil, the Danish entrepreneur and owner of fashion apparel brand Hummel.
The company intends to use the funds to continue expansion into new markets across Europe, Asia and America,
Founded in September 2013 by entrepreneurs Kasper Gevaldig and Esben Elmoe, AllUnite provides free Wi-Fi in commercial locations, such as supermarkets, shops and restaurants, in exchange for advertising space on customers’ mobile devices. Located at the base of the devices’ web browsers, this advertising space allows businesses to offer personalised and relevant adverts to current and potential customers within a physical proximity to the store.
It is also designed to accommodate the need of retailers to collect shop floor data, allowing them to record information such as what proportion of customers are returning rather than new customers; the average time a customer spends in store, as well as profiles of customers including data on gender, age, and marital status.
Additionally, The company offers businesses or commercial sites a heat map, which shows where customers are localized in a shop and helps with the process of retail space management. (the mapping service is available to businesses that have 3 or more Wi-Fi boxes from AllUnite.)
Since launching on January 1 2014, AllUnite has grown to 500,000 users in Denmark and, following this funding round, it is set to roll out in a number of other territories, including the UK, India, China and Brazil, with a plan to expand into 50 countries in 50 weeks.
FinSMEs
18/11/2014