Blackbird Ventures has participated in a $US5 million ($7.69 million) seed funding round for a start-up launched in the US by three young Australians.
Checkmate’s mobile phone app serves as an online shopping tool that discovers brands, applies savings and keeps track of orders post-purchase. The app, which can also be used on a PC as a Chrome extension, collates the best deals from email and web sources and automatically applies at online checkouts.
The capital raise was led by US venture firm Fuel Capital and was also supported by f7 Ventures; Scribble Ventures, Hyper, Susa Ventures, Wischoff Ventures, Exits Capital and Night Capital along with Kevin Johnson, the former chief executive of Ebates at Rakuten; American football star Joe Montana’s Liquid 2 Ventures; chief executive of Ancestry, Deborah Liu; chief executive of Firstbase, Chris Herd; and co-founder of XMTP, Shane Mac.
Checkmate is free to consumers with the company receiving payment from the brands and retailers it partners with. The company tested and then launched its product over the US summer with 200 customers and that number has now grown to more than a thousand.
Checkmate was set up in San Francisco 18 months ago by Rory Garton-Smith, Elliot Rampono and Harry Dixon who attended the University of Western Australia together and later each took tech jobs in the US.
Chief executive Dixon, who previously worked at EasyPost, said: “With record-high inflation, economic uncertainty and a volatile stock market, consumers are looking to save wherever they can. At the same time, skyrocketing digital ad costs mean retailers and brands need new ways to establish and build their own customer relationships.”
According to Checkmate’s founders, for brands, its technology functions as a powerful conversion engine that also helps attract targeted audiences and build long-term relationships with customers. In a testing phase, users engaged with Checkmate 3.5 times per week and saved on average more than 27% when purchasing, versus roughly 15% with other savings apps.
Founding partner at Fuel Capital, Chris Howard, said: “Checkmate is a tool purpose-built to respond to current market dynamics and provides significant value to brands. We’re highly confident in the Checkmate team and are excited to support the company as it continues to provide significant value to brands and marketing teams.”
Checkmate’s technolgy includes a facility to generate a ‘ghost email inbox’ for users in its backend. This can be signed up to the top 100 retail and brand mailing lists so a user can collect thousands of personalised deals without having their own inbox filled with offers. Checkmate automatically applies any relevant deals when the user visits an online checkout.
Checkmate plans to use the funding for product development, growing its customer base and developing additional brand partnerships.
Image: Checkmate founders Rory Garton-Smith, Elliot Rampono and Harry Dixon.