Confido, a New York-based developer of AI-powered software for consumer packaged goods companies, has raised a $55 million Series B led by Insight Partners, with participation from Trenches Capital, Watchfire, Barrel Ventures, Footwork, and Y Combinator. The financing brings the company’s total funding to $77 million and will support product development, expansion into food service, and additional hiring across its engineering, product, and go-to-market organizations.
The investment follows substantial growth at Confido, which reported fivefold year-over-year growth since its Series A financing and a fivefold increase in valuation over the same period.
Returning investors Footwork and Y Combinator have now participated in three consecutive Confido funding rounds, continuing their support as the company expands its platform for managing the financial and operational activities of consumer brands.
Founded in 2022 by Justin Hunter and Kara Holinski, both former athletes, Confido develops software designed to connect financial planning, accounting, sales, trade spending, and operations within consumer packaged goods businesses.
The company’s platform is currently used by more than 250 consumer brands, including Daisy, Dude Wipes, Kettle & Fire, and Unilever.
Collectively, more than $30 billion in retail sales planning runs through Confido’s platform, reflecting its growing role in the commercial operations of consumer brands.
Confido is addressing a longstanding challenge in the consumer packaged goods industry, where companies frequently rely on disconnected systems to manage activities that directly affect profitability.
These processes include trade promotions, retailer deductions, financial forecasting, sales planning, accounting, and operational coordination.
When these activities are managed across separate applications and spreadsheets, finance and operations teams can struggle to maintain consistent information, identify financial discrepancies, and make coordinated business decisions.
Confido’s platform consolidates these workflows into a shared system, allowing commercial, finance, accounting, and operations teams to work with the same underlying information.
Its AI-powered technology is designed to go beyond recording transactions or generating reports by automating the work associated with resolving deductions, evaluating financial impacts, improving forecasts, and coordinating operational processes.
Retailer deductions are a particular area of focus. These occur when retailers reduce payments to consumer brands for reasons such as promotional allowances, pricing discrepancies, shortages, or other commercial adjustments.
Managing these deductions can involve significant administrative work, particularly for brands selling through multiple retailers and distribution channels.
Confido’s platform uses automation to help teams identify and resolve these issues while surfacing decisions that require human judgment.
The company’s approach is intended to improve financial visibility and reduce the operational burden associated with managing complex commercial relationships.
Confido also connects trade spending and sales planning with financial forecasting, helping brands evaluate how promotional activities, retailer agreements, and operating decisions affect profitability.
As the company expands its technology, it aims to provide a unified platform covering the broader commercial lifecycle of consumer packaged goods businesses.
Its customers include businesses seeking to coordinate financial and operational information across multiple retail partners, product categories, and sales channels.
MUSH, a consumer food brand, is among the businesses using Confido to improve forecasting and coordination between finance and operations.
The company plans to use the Series B proceeds to accelerate the development of additional AI-powered capabilities as it extends automation across more back-office functions.
A major component of its expansion strategy involves increasing its presence in food service, broadening the company’s reach beyond its existing consumer packaged goods customer base.
Confido will also grow its engineering, product, and commercial teams to support customer demand and the development of its platform.
The latest financing comes as consumer brands face pressure to protect profit margins while managing increasingly complicated retail relationships and operational processes.
Confido’s technology is intended to help these businesses improve financial accuracy, reduce administrative expenses, and make more informed decisions about spending and commercial operations.
For Insight Partners, the investment represents an opportunity to support an AI software company focused on a large market where financial and operational workflows have historically relied on fragmented systems.
Footwork, which previously backed Confido, identified the broader consumer packaged goods industry as a substantial opportunity for technology providers, estimating the category at $2.5 trillion and the software market serving it at more than $100 billion.
Confido’s latest financing provides additional resources to expand its product capabilities and customer base as it pursues a larger role in the technology infrastructure supporting consumer brands.
KEY QUOTES:
“For decades, CPG software recorded the work but never did it. We built Confido to run it. CPG is a game of margins. You cannot run a sharp brand without software this powerful. The brands that matter already run on Confido — the rest will spend years explaining why they didn’t.”
Justin Hunter, Co-Founder and CEO of Confido
“Confido has been instrumental for us. It’s given us the visibility and insights we need to have confidence in our forecast, improve accuracy across finance and operations, and ultimately make better decisions.”
Gary Hilderbrand, Chief Financial Officer of MUSH
“Leading consumer brands are laser-focused on each incremental point of margin. That requires data you can actually trust and every part of the commercial operation moving in sync. Confido makes this possible with an AI-powered system that brings finance, sales, and trade operations into a single platform. We are thrilled to partner with Justin, Kara, and the Confido team as they scale.”
Rebecca Liu-Doyle, Managing Director at Insight Partners
“You don’t back a team three times on a story. You back them on results. The teams that win are built so every part works as one system, and that is what protects a brand’s margin. Margin is what gives growth room to run.”
Larry Fitzgerald Jr., Co-Founder of Trenches Capital and Confido Investor
“CPG is a $2.5 trillion category, and the software to run it is a $100 billion-plus market that no company had ever claimed. We backed Confido during the Series A because they understood the back office better than anyone. We’re back because they’re now building the platform that the whole category can run on.”
Mike Smith, Co-Founder and General Partner at Footwork
