- Mable, a Boston-based wholesale commerce platform company, announced recently that it raised $3.1 million in a seed round of funding
Boston-based company Mable announced recently that it raised $3.1 million in a seed round of funding to launch a wholesale commerce platform for small businesses in the grocery, convenience, artisanal, and health food market spaces. Venrock, Accomplice, and Founder Collective led the funding round along with several angel investors, including Laurent Amouyal, Shopkeep co-founder David Olk, and James McCann.
What does Mable do? Mable is a simple wholesale platform for retailers, brands, and distributors which makes it easier to find and buy quality products. And Mable was built in the form of a mobile and web-based B2B wholesale platform.
Mable’s platform essentially connects retailers, distributors, and brands for enabling more efficient product discovery, ordering, financing, and inventory management. This market is estimated to be valued at about $641 billion.
Mable was founded by Arik Keller and Eric Carlstrom. Keller is the former CPO of confirm.io (acquired by Facebook) and was the former head of PayPal’s demand generation division. And Carlstrom is known as the former CTO of SidelineSwap and EverTrue.
Once Keller sold his previous company to Facebook, he bought a small grocery store. And from that experience, he quickly discovered the inefficiencies of managing inventory procurement. And so Keller teamed up with Carlstrom to solve the problem
“When I bought my store, I found modern tech solutions for nearly everything, except re-ordering inventory. The status quo for grocers is to order via phone, text, or email, which makes managing purchases from multiple distributors and brands incredibly labor-intensive,” said Keller in a statement. “We found ourselves saying, ‘If we could just order everything in one place, life would be a lot easier.’ Then it occurred to me — we should build that!”
Mable’s beta platform launched last month and it will first focus on servicing the Northeast of the U.S. However, it is available to businesses across the U.S.
“Some of the most successful companies start with a founder who, in his or her previous occupation, discovered a major flaw in the system. The Mable team has first-hand experience with the procurement problem facing independent stores and understands the time and cost-saving impact of their solution,” added Mike Tyrrell, a partner at Venrock. “We are inspired by the team and company’s vision to make independent retailers more competitive.”
