Retention Science Launches, Leverages Big Data to Maximize e-Commerce Customer Retention

SANTA MONICA, Calif., July 18, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Innovative big data retention marketing platform Retention Science launched today in order to provide e-Commerce businesses with actionable data analytics tools to cost-effectively prevent customer churn and encourage reengagement.

For marketers, customer acquisition often receives more attention and investment than customer retention, even though it costs several times more to obtain a new customer than it does to retain an existing one. Retention Science is fulfilling this oversight through its Customer Profiling Engine, a learning engine that uses algorithms and statistical modeling to build custom retention optimization strategies. The platform effectively reactivates customers before they churn to a competitor or simply lose interest in the company's products or services. Analytics are performed in real-time to ensure up-to-date customer behavior predictions.

The company also features intelligent offers, where it collects customer demographic, social, and behavioral data and unites them with real-time web viewing patterns and purchase history to predict the most relevant campaigns and dynamically create offers based on customer unique characteristics. It allows e-Commerce companies to optimize their broader profit margins based on individual preferences and sensitivity to pricing.

The $1.3 million seed round comes from multiple sources including Baroda Ventures, Mohr Davidow Ventures, Double M Partners and prominent angels including Bong Koh (Lifecrowd), Clark Landry (GraphEffect), Kunal Anand (BBC; MySpace; Gravity), Mike Greenfield (Circle of Moms), Paige Craig (Forbes Top 10 Angel), as well as several Stanford Ph.D. data scientists from companies including LinkedIn, PayPal and IBM.

"Our platform enables e-Commerce businesses to reengage the right customers with the optimal offers at the optimal time," said Jerry Jao, co-founder and CEO of Retention Science." "Some of the biggest e-Commerce players are seeing substantial rewards after they made investments in retention marketing and big data analytics. It's so important because of the 80/20 rule, where 80 percent of a company's future profits are coming from 20 percent of the existing customers. We are meeting the mid-market demand for a customer retention platform that can drive tremendous growth in existing customer spending."

"Customer acquisition is often expensive, and companies that don't work towards retaining those earned customers are wasting dollars," said MuckerLab co-founder William Hsu. "Retention Science offers the big data-driven math to detect when customers are at the 'lapse' point in their individual lifecycle. Such data allows businesses to proactively reach out to reassert customer engagement with their brand for eventual sales. With a sound strategy and experienced management team, we foresee considerable interest in their services across multiple ecommerce players."

Mr. Jao co-founded Retention Science along with high school best friend and Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Andrew Waage, who holds the CTO title at the firm. After working together for several years and founding two other e-Commerce focused companies, Mr. Jao and Mr. Waage desired to use their expertise in e-Commerce to build a retention platform that produced real results. Retention Science increased sales by more than 133% during its closed beta, has already signed up name brands and is revenue-generating.

For more information about the company's retention marketing platform, visit www.retentionscience.com.

About Retention Science
Retention Science is a Santa Monica, California-based startup that features the Customer Profiling Engine, a platform that is able to turn Big Data analytics into actionable retention marketing strategies. The company aids businesses that need automation in their customer retention strategies by analyzing the customer lifecycle and identifying the ideal time periods for customer reengagement.

The recipient of a $1.3 million seed funding round in July, 2012, Retention Science comes out of the MuckerLab accelerator program. The company's advisory board includes a former SVP Chief Product Officer from AT&T Interactive, senior product leads from Google and Microsoft, and marketing executives from eBay, HauteLook, StubHub, TripAdvisor and other Fortune 500 companies.

About MuckerLab
MuckerLab is a mentorship-driven startup accelerator focused on serving Internet software, services and media entrepreneurs in Los Angeles and broader Southern California. MuckerLab aims to accelerate the growth of the overall technology ecosystem in Los Angeles by filling a critical gap currently in the market for start-ups at the earliest stages—resources, infrastructure, capital and guidance. MuckerLab partners and mentors work side-by-side with the region's best entrepreneurs, enabling them to build, launch and raise financing for exceptional businesses. Portfolio companies go through a structured, 3-month-long program that provides them with funding, office space and access to a deep mentor network of top-tier investors and entrepreneurs. MuckerLab is a proud member of the TechStars Network. www.muckerlab.com.

SOURCE Retention Science