The direct-to-consumer business world remains noisy. It’s not enough to launch a business and advertise on Google and Facebook – today’s eCommerce merchants must be omnichannel.
This is where Pietra comes in. The ex-Uber team, led by co-founder and CEO Ronak Trivedi, started in 2019 as a marketplace for jewelry sellers and pivoted in 2021 to help creators build back-ends to launch and scale product lines. raising $15 million in Series A capital in the process.
“It’s getting harder and harder to run a profitable DTC or e-commerce business,” Trivedi said in an interview. “We’re entering an era where you can’t overspend and hack your way to continued growth. There are more channels and with so many brands online, you need to stand out. Your content has to be great and you have to innovate and being smart about how you grow your business online.”
From 2021, the e-commerce infrastructure company’s focus on guiding customers through the process of building an e-commerce business, including giving them access to over 1,000 suppliers for everything from sourcing to order fulfillment has now given them 100,000 active users. Pietra also ended 2022 with a 100x increase in transaction volume and a 35x increase in annual revenue.
Today, the company announced that it closed on $16 million in new capital in the form of a Series A extension, led by M13. Founders Fund, which led the initial Series A, also participated in this round, as well as TQ Ventures and Abstract Ventures. Pietra raised $36 million in total, and the recent round increased the company’s valuation by 30%, Trivedi said.
Pietra’s logistics board. Image credits: stone
With the new funding, Pietra is entering the commerce enablement industry with a revamped Pietra Subscription, a monthly subscription starting at $39 per month to access free software tools from performance to influencer marketing. It also has a third-party logistics network and a sales and distribution channel. You can use Pietra for free. Currently, about 10% of its users are paid, Trivedi said.
Additionally, the company plans to expand internationally, doubling its team and expanding operations to Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York by 2023.
Trivedi called the recent round “opportunistic”. The company still had more than two years of track left, but wanted to bring on some additional employees and meet the demand it couldn’t meet last year. For example, Pietra had these 100,000 customer records, but was only able to onboard a portion of them as customers. Also, the company didn’t want to raise a full Series B yet until it hit some internal milestones with customers and product offerings.
“We want to build the world’s largest membership network for businesses,” Trivedi said. “Over time, Pietra will provide all the tools, apps and software that people are used to spending big money on, but will be available to members at a fraction of the price.”
Meanwhile, as part of the investment, M13’s Carter Reum and Brent Murri join Pietra’s board of directors. Co-founder and managing partner Reum started M13 with his brother, Courtney Reum, after selling their spirits business Veev to Luxco in 2016.
He also watched his wife, Paris Hilton, grow her e-commerce business into a $4 billion empire, so for him, Pietra understood how to build a business from the ground up to distribution.
“To have 100,000 members and 9,000 paid subscribers, it shows you that the thesis is perfect,” Reum told TechCrunch. “After following this company for two years, they’re at the precipice of a collision of all these things: I love their track record at Uber, their ability to think as a platform and how to drive the next generation of DTC companies”.
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Pietra, the software platform helping creators to build and launch Direct To Consumer (DTC) businesses, has just announced its newest roadmap. This exciting development permits Pietra to be accessible to all, not just practitioners and innovators. This development is made possible with the help of Ikaroa, the full stack tech company, who specialize in providing their clients with the right tools and insights needed for a successful DTC business.
This roadmap for Pietra is vital for companies of all sizes as it provides a pre-built, guideable journey from conception to launching. Furthermore, it allows entrepreneurs to track and improve their progress with the help of analytics so that they can make sure that their product is a success from the very first sale. The roadmap is designed to foster early-stage development and scale the business long-term.
In addition to their roadmap, Pietra is providing their customers with no-code infrastructure for launching a DTC business. This includes the ability to collect payments, run surveys, customize branding and create personalized product offerings. This simplifies the process of launching a business, allowing users to do it in a fraction of the time and with little investment.
Ikaroa’s partnership with Pietra is an example of their commitment to with providing tools which will help their clients achieve success. Their technology helps to bridge the gap between small businesses and established enterprises, giving small startups the edge they need to make their business a success. With their help, Pietra are providing a complete package for launching a DTC business, no matter the size or budget.
Pietra’s newest roadmap is a giant leap forward in allowing anyone create a successful DTC business, and Ikaroa are playing a key role in making this transformation possible. With Ikaroa’s technology, entrepreneurs now have access to their complete resources to launch their business, ensuring they have the support they need to succeed.
