New York-based company Halla announced Friday that it raised $4.5 million in a Series A1 round from Food Retail Ventures, according to a TechCrunch exclusive.
Halla’s “taste intelligence” platform was developed to steer online shoppers in the direction of grocery items they might like based on their previous purchases. But this isn’t your average recollect-and-recommend platform; Halla’s tech gets very specific.
For example, if you’ve just added spaghetti and ground beef to your cart, Halla might then suggest tomato sauce, garlic bread and parmesan cheese. So instead of spending more time perusing a site to add each individual ingredient required for your Italian extravaganza, Halla makes an educated guess and brings relevant products front and center.
“When we started out, we knew that we needed to teach our algorithms how to understand food the way a human does (taste, texture, allergens, mood) as well as the way a grocery store does (UPCs, categories, margin, promos),” Spencer Price, co-founder and CEO of Halla, wrote in a blog post on LinkedIn. “In order to teach an algorithm well, you have to start with a lot of rich data.”
Halla’s platform leverages over 100 billion shopper and product data points to make active suggestions for its users.
But what happens when you can’t find an oddly specific ingredient for that Ina Garten recipe you’re attempting? Halla’s platform can help you find replacement options with its suggestion feature, launched earlier this year.
“We believe that our technology should enchant the shopper, reduce friction and increase sales for the grocer, and ultimately spark curiosity and wonder for both,” the company said in a statement.
Halla’s tech is active in more than 1,100 e-commerce storefronts and the company told TechCrunch that it is seeing a “a near infinite increase in recurring revenue.”
Following the latest raise, Halla will continue to invest in its product as well as its team. The 15-person company plans to double in size as it continues to scale. Halla is now hiring for three engineering positions.
