Early-stage venture capital firm Rampersand has led a $2.3 million investment round for e-commerce oversight technology start-up Keeyu.
Other investors in the round include Archangel, Startmate, Empress Capital, Exhort Ventures, Sydney Angels, Southern Angels and individual angel investors including Jason Wyatt from Marketplacer, Alexey Mitko, formerly of Eucalyptus and now of Co Ventures, Paul Greenberg of Deals Direct and Luigi Iacullo, an early investor in Canva.
Chief executive Jevon Le Roux said he and co-founders, chief product officer Tracy Godtschalk and chief technology officer Tahir Rauf were all former retail executives. They had first-hand experience of how easily online retail sales processes can breakdown under pressure during peak sales periods such as the lead up to Black Friday.
They had developed an oversight technology system specifically to prevent such problems and had launched it as Keeyu in July 2024.
Le Roux said disconnected systems, delayed insights and poor customer service can not only lose sales they can irreparably damage reputations.
Studies show that nearly half of customers wh experience poor delivery in future avoid the merchant concerned.
Keeyu orchestrates the entire order journey – from payment and fulfilment to delivery and returns – detecting problems in real time, taking action automatically where possible and in other instances alerting sales teams so they can act before problems turn into costly service issues, Le Roux said.
While conventional helpdesks and generic chatbots have been set up to manage complaints, Keeyu’s artificial intelligence (AI) agent platform has been developed to minimise problems that lead to complaints, Le Roux said. The platform connects all systems and monitors each order in real time to detect problems such as failed payments, delivery delays or unavailability of stock. Keeyu can be set up to integrate with major e-commerce sales platforms such as Shopify.
To date. the Keeyu technology has been adopted by 15 retailers including Decjuba, Rebel Sport NZ and Camilla.
Tracy Godtschalk said Keeyu’s vision is to make its proactive operations the new standard in e-commerce.
Image: Keeyu founders chief product officer Tracy Godtschalk, chief executive Jevon Le Roux and chief technology officer Tahir Rauf.