Swarm Mobile has raised just under USD3.5 million in its first funding round, according to a Securities and Exchanges Commission (SEC) filing. The new funding will be used to develop a technology for tracking shoppers in-store through their smartphones, VentureBeat reported.
The tech startup aims to position brick and mortar shops at par with e-commerce retailers. The latter already hold a bulk of data about shoppers' buying habits. The company's website says Swarm uses data from smartphones to personalize the shopping experience of both new and repeat customers. The company has a cloud-based platform that integrates into the retailer's public Wi-Fi network, the report explained.
While the shoppers use the free Wi-Fi, Swarm collects analytics about their shopping behavior. The information gathered is fed to the retailer's dashboard. The store can then send targeted coupons, messages, and promotional codes to its customers, the report said.
This financing round was led by Icon Ventures. The firm's partner, Tom Peterson, will be joining Swarm's board, the report stated.
Swarm is currently based in San Francisco, but it has offices in Los Angeles, New York, and Australia, according to VentureBeat.
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