Fillr Raises A$5M in Series A Financing from SoftBank China, Southern Cross and Reinventure
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 7, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Fillr, creator of the world's most accurate, fastest and secure autofill technology, today announces a $5 million Series A fundraising round from a consortium of international investors including SoftBank China Capital, Southern Cross Venture Partners and Reinventure. SoftBank China, the single largest investor in e-commerce giant Alibaba, joins forces with current investors, Constant Innovation, the early stage venture fund launched by the founders of carsales.com, including Chairman Wal Pisciotta and CEO Greg Roebuck.
This Series A fundraising will enable Fillr to rapidly expand its growing global presence in North American, European and Asian markets. Additionally, the fundraising round will support continued product and partnership-driven expansion and further advancements in tech/AI.
Chris Koch, Co-founder and CEO of Fillr today said, "From our initial launch just a little more than a year ago to today, it's been amazing to see both the customer and investor response to our vision of increasing conversion rates for virtually any kind of transaction on mobile. Having already facilitated over 1.4 million of these transactions, Fillr has experienced phenomenal growth in a short period of time, which validates the unique value and position of our best-of-class technology."
Said Co-founder and Chief Product Officer Chad Stephens, "A significant portion of this investment will fund further product enhancement, including expanding Fillr's cloud-based artificial intelligence, while also allowing us to bring Fillr to new platforms, including desktop PCs. All of these initiatives work towards realizing our mission: helping the world to spend less time typing so that they can spend more time doing the things they love."
Said SoftBank China Managing Director John Guo, "Fillr solves one of the most glaring problems of mobile e-commerce: The fact that conversion rates on mobile are terrible. This financing round will enable Fillr to continue its already-solid, aggressive global expansion, making e-commerce more convenient for the entire mobile web. I am excited to be joining the board of Fillr and look forward to assisting their continued growth by leveraging the relationships we have that span the entire mobile ecosystem."
"Fillr's technology provides a vital link in mobile transaction conversions," said Co-founder and MD of Reinventure Danny Gilligan, "More than 120,000 merchants all over the world have already benefitted from the increased conversion Fillr enables. We're excited to support this step-change in expansion that is already well underway."
Located in Melbourne, Australia and San Francisco, USA, Fillr has created cloud-based artificial intelligence that uses advanced machine-learning to power a data exchange platform that can be used for any payment, checkout or data transaction on the internet. For its users, Fillr is simply the world's most intelligent autofill - fast accurate and secure.
Currently, more than 60% of worldwide traffic to e-commerce sites begins on a mobile device. And yet whilst mobile is responsible for the lion's share of traffic, it performs terribly when it comes to conversions, responsible for a mere 15.6% of completed transactions. Why? Filling out multi-field checkout forms on a handheld device is difficult, time-consuming and frustrating. Existing solutions offered by major technology companies are woefully inaccurate, averaging just 53% accuracy across the world's most-visited e-commerce sites. By comparison, Fillr is 95% accurate on the same sites and climbing.
"We have solved the problem of mobile conversions unlike any other companies, using a much forgotten 'doorway' that already exists to facilitate the exchange of data. That 'doorway', which historically has been poorly executed by others, is autofill," said CEO and Co-founder Chris Koch.
"Our proprietary cloud-based AI means our engine can apply more processing power to the problem of machine-reading and mapping the web's 100 million plus web forms. Our solution is future proof with ever-growing intelligence and not at all dependent on rarely-followed HTML accessibility and WHATWG Autocomplete standards."
Response from users and partners has been extremely positive, swift and wide-ranging. Currently, Fillr has partnered with more than 20 different browsers, handset OEMs and mobile software providers that represent a collective reach of more than 150 million MAUs. With more than two thirds of its transactions emanating from North America and the United Kingdom, Fillr is fast expanding globally, facilitating transactions in more than 172 countries and growing.
Said CEO Koch, "We're extremely excited about where we're taking Fillr in the next year. With several major new partnerships just weeks from going live and a raft of new tech enhancements set to launch, 2017 will be a watershed year for Fillr. We're honored and excited to take this journey together with our new investors who have an epic track record with tech companies like Alibaba and Taobao."
To learn more, please visit www.fillr.com.
Additional information for media is available via the Fillr Press Kit.
About Fillr
Fillr is the world's most intelligent autofill, built from the ground-up to solve the issue of converting on mobile. Our powerful mapping engine, algorithms and machine learning technology utilize advanced proprietary textual heuristics to read forms as close to human representation as possible. Unlike other 'payment' platforms, Fillr can be used anywhere regardless of a merchant being integrated with us and can be used for any transaction, even those that don't require payment. Fillr is led by second time entrepreneurs Chris Koch and Chad Stephens. With their first tech venture 1Form.com, they transformed the Australian housing market gaining 90% market share before it was acquired by publicly listed REA/Newscorp (Realestate.com.au, $6b market cap). Fillr has offices in Melbourne and San Francisco and is backed by SoftBank China Capital, Southern Cross Venture Capital, Reinventure and Constant Innovation. www.fillr.com
About SoftBank China Capital
Established in 2000, SoftBank China Capital (SBCVC) is a leading venture capital and private equity firm that manages both USD and RMB funds. Our investment focuses on high-tech, high growth companies in TMT, clean technology, healthcare, consumer/retail, and advanced manufacturing sectors; and we invest across all stages of companies. In addition to providing capital support, we help our portfolio companies realize their strategic and commercial potential and have a proven track record supporting successful industry-leading companies. Some of our spotlight portfolio companies are Alibaba, Taobao, Focus Media, GDS, Shenwu, Precise, Di'an, and Edan. www.sbcvc.com
About Southern Cross Venture Partners
Southern Cross Venture Partners was launched in 2006 by veteran venture capitalists who have managed and operated companies themselves. Southern Cross Venture Partners assist early stage technology companies that demonstrate the potential for exceptional growth and market leadership build significant businesses. The founding principle of Southern Cross is partnership -- they are passionately committed to doing everything they can to help their portfolio companies succeed. Their team has a strong record of utilizing their start-up and management experience, industry knowledge, network of business/customer relationships, and recruiting skills to assist in building significant shareholder value. www.sxvp.com
About Reinventure
Reinventure is the Westpac backed independent corporate venture capital fund that makes investments from seed to Series A and up in great teams building great companies. Reinventure is one of the leading investors in the emerging data industry, with existing investments in Data Republic, Zetaris, HyperAnna and Auror. www.reinventure.com.au
About Constant Innovation
Constant Innovation is an early stage venture capital firm that invests in high-growth technology businesses that are solving real problems. We provide equity capital and management expertise to entrepreneurs who are building great businesses. We are experienced entrepreneurs and executives who are passionate about backing inspiring entrepreneurs. We have founded, operated and exited from successful technology businesses. Two of the most prominent examples of our technology businesses are Pentana Solutions Pty Ltd and Carsales.com Ltd. www.constantinnovation.com.au
Contacts
San Francisco Office
Karl Mattson
Vice President, Growth
[email protected]
+1-415-939-7727 (mobile)
Australian Office
Mervyn Kuek
COO
[email protected]
+61-448-336-616 (mobile)
SOURCE Fillr
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