- Chicago-based curated shopping app company Mavely announced it raised $1 million in funding
Mavely — a Chicago-based curated shopping app company that rewards women for everyday activities like shopping, sharing, and influencing — has recently rolled out and it raised $1 million in funding.
Founded by CEO Evan Wray, CCO Peggy O’Flaherty and Sean O’Brien, Mavely’s users can discover new direct-to-consumer brands and earn affiliate commission off purchases. Plus they can tap into their own community to share their favorite products. From the brand side, Mavely builds a new channel for D2C brands to reach an untapped network of customers while disrupting the traditional multi-level-marketing (MLM) space.
“Mavely is solving the rising costs of customer acquisition, a major hurdle for D2C brands today,” said Wray. “Mavely is becoming a solid, competitive alternative to costly social channel advertising and provides marketers with a more efficient way to acquire customers at half the cost of Facebook ads. We are already seeing up to a 12% buy conversion rate on products, which obliterates the industry average.”
Mavely connects users to a network of more than 100 D2C brands and modernizes the MLM business model so that it works for all women rather than just the 1%. And users can invite friends and family and earn up to 10% back on their purchases or simply shop for themselves and earn 5% back on anything they buy.
There are more than 15,000 products from over 100 brands that are available on Mavely including Allbirds, BarkBox, Brandless, Brooklinen, Home Chef, La Colombe, Little Spoon, M. Gemi, Noom, Sun Basket, Trade Coffee, etc.
“At Mavely, we believe that everyday shoppers deserve a return on their influence, not just the celebrity ones,” added O’Flaherty, CCO and co-founder of Mavely. “People naturally want to share the products they love to friends and family, in fact 60% of consumers and 70% of millennials say social content from friends and family impact their purchasing decisions. We created a platform that allows them to easily tap into an established network of new and exciting brands to earn cash.”
There is no cost to join and no inventory requirements. Plus there are no minimum followers count. And anyone can download the free Mavely app and start shopping. Plus users are not pigeonholed into promoting one line of product. Women can freely buy and recommend the products that resonate most with their lifestyle creating a genuine, trusted shopping experience.
Mavely’s $1 million funding round was from PivotNorth Capital — which is a venture firm led by Tim Connors. Connors is an early investor in companies like Looker, Chime, and Sun Basket. And Connors was part of six unicorns of which six saw successful exits.
“Mavely is led by an all-star entrepreneurial, diverse executive team that has a long history of founding successful start-ups and executing profitable exits,” explained Connors. “There is no doubt that the future of e-commerce is shifting to a D2C model and as these brands become more prevalent, Mavely provides an excellent opportunity for companies to stay competitive.”
Mavely is adding five to ten new D2C brands each week across multiple verticals and by year’s end expects to be serving more than 30,000 users.
“Little Spoon designs high-quality meals and nutritional products to support your baby’s health and development,” commented Little Spoon co-founder Lisa Barnett. “Mavely allows us to reach more families by tapping into new communities of parents – moms and dads who understand that a baby’s first bites matter – more efficiently and directly than many traditional social channels. This helps us authentically grow our community and continue to deliver on and expand our mission of helping parents set their children up for a lifetime of health and well-being.”
