Uncrowd, a British company developing a customer analytics platform for retailers, is this year’s winner of Microsoft’s inaugural global award for start-ups.
London-based Uncrowd, offers a customer analytics platform that enables retailers to understand customer preferences and behaviour, make immediate changes to marketing and operations, and dramatically increase sales.
Uncrowd was selected from a huge array of companies delivering services via Microsoft’s Azure platform worldwide.
Uncrowd enables retailers to configure up to 82 variables, model their impact on customer browsing and buying behaviour relative to competitors and take immediate, profitable actions.
Richard Hammond, co-founder and CEO of Uncrowd, said: “We’re thunderstruck by this endorsement from Microsoft, a global technology giant and hugely supportive partner. For us, it feels like the award equivalent of a Series A round.
He said that the buzz around his outfit is intensifying and retailers are waking up to the importance of nuance and accuracy in insight. In the last few years, board and operational tolerance of vague metrics have declined as better ways of understanding and modelling customer motivations have emerged.
“We’re at the crest of this wave and we’re delighted with this accolade. It’s yet another important endorsement of the calibre of the UK tech start-up community.”
The business has completed a seed funding round, with investments from key retail and tech entrepreneurs, private equity investors and VC funds. London-headquartered Uncrowd currently employs nine people, has a presence in the US, and is focused on the top 250 retailers worldwide.
Uncrowd is also expanding its advisory Board with the appointments of Joanne Webb, a senior commercial strategist who has held executive roles at the Walt Disney Company and Merlin Entertainments, and John Phillips, CTO at Havas. Further executive appointments to the Uncrowd advisory Board are imminent.
Co-founder and CTO, Rocky Howard, said: “Our platform enables any of the top 250 retailers in the world to add a minimum of $1 million to their operating profit without getting close to Uncrowd’s full potential. There isn’t a platform in the world that gives retailers as clear a set of actionable insights about their customers. It’s the sort of management information that makes a minute by minute difference to sales performance, grounded in practical utility. It makes Net Promoter scores look like vague, redundant hearsay by comparison.”
