Curalate’s co-founder and CEO first started a company that works like Airbnb but for parking and storage. Until he realized that it was really a bad idea so they offered to return the money back to their investors, but they were told to come up with something new. In 2012, Gupta launched Curalate.
In a recent financing round, Curalate raised $27.5 million in funding led by New Enterprise Associates, which turns the company’s total funding into $40 million. Curalate is not a single product, but a suite of tools that works in turning a social media page into an online marketplace.
The tools are Like2Buy, Fanreel, Visual Insights, Reveal, and Ads. These tools work together in developing social media as a tool for e-commerce rather than just for display.
Some of the big names that’s been utilizing Curalate to sell their products are BuzzFeed, Nasty Gal, Nordstrom, Refinery29, J.Crew, Gap, Sephora, Neiman Marcus, Urban Outfitters and True Religion.
Through Curalate, these brands can learn which of their products are famous with their followers, gain insights on social media users with a huge following and create sponsored content for them, and then turn their page or feed where people can buy your stuff being promoted by the social media star.
Source: Techcrunch
