July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Chances are good that you’re guilty of showrooming, or scoping out a product in a physical retail store before buying it online (likely at a significant discount). Now a new study from the location analytics company Placed shows which retailers are most at risk for showrooming from Amazon customers — and the results might surprise you.

In “Aisle to Amazon: How Amazon is impacting brick-and-mortar retailers,” Placed found that showrooming affects Bed Bath & Beyond, Petsmart, and Toys “R” Us more than other retailers typically associated with the phenomenon, like Best Buy and Target.

The study is based on 14,925 survey responses in the U.S., coupled with nearly 1 billion location data points measured by Placed across the country in January. With the proliferation of smartphones, price-matching apps, and other tools, showrooming is one of the biggest concerns for traditional retailers.

“Amazon was the clear winner in e-commerce 1.0, and unless brick-and-mortar retailers shift from reactive to proactive, Amazon will win e-commerce 2.0 on the backs of offline retailers,” said David Shim, Placed’s founder and chief executive. “All the attention to date has been on Target and Best Buy as the early victims of showrooming, but significantly more retailers are at risk. Retailers need to know that it’s not a question of if or when showrooming will impact their business, as an aisle to Amazon is already in their store.”

As you can see from the chart, Bed Bath & Beyond faced a 27 percent higher risk of showrooming than the average, while Petsmart had a 25 percent risk. In comparison, showroomers were only 20 percent more likely to visit Best Buy and 15 percent more likely to visit Target.

Both Best Buy and Target recently announced that they would match prices from online stores, a clear sign that they’re ready to take on the issue of showroomers. Placed’s study shows that plenty of other retailers will need to follow in their footsteps.

Here are a few other intriguing details from the report:

• Users of Amazon’s Price Check app were 53 percent more likely to visit T.J. Maxx than the average consumer and 49 percent more likely to visit Costco.
• Wal-Mart was relatively safe from showroomers — they were 10 percent to 15 percent less likely to visit Wal-Mart, compared to Target and Best Buy.
• At the same time, Wal-Mart is the most popular destination for Amazon customers (not just showroomers); 25.2 percent of Amazon customers surveyed visited a Wal-Mart store in January. Target was a distant second at just 10.7 percent of Amazon customers.

Photo via Shutterstock

There’s still no official release date, but Leap Motion has already scored a major deal for its long-awaited gesture control gadget with Best Buy.

The Leap Motion Controller will be available at Best Buy’s stores and website for $70 when it launches this spring, Leap announced this morning. Pre-orders will begin on Best Buy’s website in February, though you can also preorder via Leap’s website right now.

Leap’s device, which can track up to 10 fingers for Kinect-like motion controls, made a big splash when it debuted last year. The company says it can track movements smaller than a pin tip, and it can track your hands at fingers at up to 290 frames per second. Pretty impressive for a device about the size of a stick of gum.

“Finding a major retail partner for our North American launch was a critical component to our strategy, and Best Buy was the obvious choice,” Leap Motion President and chief operating officer Andy Miller said in a statement today.

As a fan of Microsoft’s Kinect motion controls, I’m hoping the Leap controller lives up to the hype. The company is aiming to replace the mouse with gesture controls, which could lead to some interesting developments on touch-focused operating systems like Windows 8.

Leap announced a major bundling deal with Asus back in December, which will see its controller included alongside certain Asus models, on top of an additional $30 million funding round. The company also plans to build an app store for gesture-controlled apps, and it has already sent out 12,000 test units to developers.

San Francisco, Calif.-based Leap has raised around $44 million in total from Highland Capital, Founders Fund, Andreessen Horowitz, and others.

In last month’s Christmas shopping season, paper catalogs influenced more holiday shopping than Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and mobile advertising platforms. And that’s not just for bricks-and-mortar stores — that’s for online shopping too.

Flyers and catalogs influenced 22 percent of online purchases and just slightly less, 21 percent, of offline purchases, according to the 1000-participant study by Baynote, a customer experience solutions company. Facebook, meanwhile, influenced 15 percent of online purchases and 12 percent of offline, and Twitter and Pinterest were at the 10 percent levels for both, according to Baynote.

“This year’s survey demonstrates the difficulty of selecting one marketing channel over another as the connected consumer becomes the status quo and as mobile and social shopping behaviors mature,” Dan Darnell, Baynote’s VP of marketing said in a statement. (It’s worth noting that Baynote’s business is multi-channel marketing solutions for retailers.)

There is some hope for digital marketers, however, even if social media is not yet turning out to be the powerhouse for revenue that some have wanted it to be.

Good old-fashioned email promotions edged out flyers in online purchases, affecting a full quarter of all online sales, and just barely trailed in offline sales. Google searches were basically tied with email promotions, and online ratings and reviews were the most powerful of all, affecting a full third of all online purchases and a quarter of all offline.

Which brings us to Amazon’s massive power as America’s price checker.

A full two-thirds of consumers don’t go to a price comparison engine, or to Google, or to local stores to check prices. Instead, they go straight to Amazon for price comparisons. (Personal note: This rings true. If I find a price somewhere online or off, checking Amazon is a good way to check if the pricing is good, great, or way out of the ballpark.)

Which is interesting, in a sense, given the fact that retailers have shown a great deal of concern about showrooming: being used as a physical location for consumers to check out products. As much as that’s a concern, and it actually happens, Amazon is also being used as the national price checker of record.

In fact, it’s likely more than that. The percentage of sales influenced by online ratings and reviews is massive, as mentioned above. And the best place to do that for any random product that you’re considering purchasing? Amazon, which probably has more ratings and reviews than any other single site. There’s a reason Google is working on its shopping solutions.

More details, including on smartphone and tablet use in online and offline sales, in Baynote’s infographic:

photo credit: Oliver Ortega Chua via photopin cc

Amazon retained its industry-leading 88 percent satisfaction score from 2011 in the study, which asked more than 24,000 consumers about their online shopping experiences between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Dell slid to 77 percent — below average —  while Netflix improved slightly. The worst performer, however, was JCPenney, slipping from 83 percent to 78 percent.

Amazon has had the highest score running for eight consecutive years, according to Foresee.

“At this point, Amazon has been dominant for so long and has such a history of focusing on the customer, it’s hard to imagine anyone else coming close,” ForeSee president and CEO Larry Freed said in a statement. “Companies should emulate Amazon’s focus on the customer, which is clearly linked to superior revenues over the years.”

In Apple’s defense, it might argue that those superior revenues are not accompanied by significant profits. And that it’s difficult to maintain high standards when the company increased net sales 144 percent from $108 billion in 2011 to $156 billion in 2012 — a staggering number that is quadruple Apple’s sales from just four years ago.

What I can say from personal experience is that Apple seems to be working hard at improving. I recently ordered a MacBook Air for my son for Christmas, and when there was some concern over whether it would arrive in time, Apple added an iPod Shuffle to the order, gratis. (The Air did eventually arrive on time.)

But customer service is a numbers game as well as a personal, one-on-one business.

“We’re seeing that even some of the largest companies in the country are at risk if they lose sight of customer satisfaction,” Freed added. “Satisfaction with the customer experience … is the most important predictor of future success.”

Here is ForeSee’s list of the top 100 online retailers in the U.S., with their customer satisfaction scores:

photo credit: jgarber via photopin cc, McFlickr via photopin cc

Half of retailers can’t aggregate all their data in one place to make detailed reports and conclusions. 45 percent don’t use available data to personalize marketing communications, and another 42 can’t link data together at the individual customer level.

That is perhaps understandable, because 90 percent of the data that’s ever been created has been created in the last two years, and the rate of data growing is increasing quickly.

But it is also a problem, because big data is the key to knowing your customers, and knowing your customers is the key to being able to sell effectively to them. Big data also has its creepy side, as when Target famously used it to figure out that a girl was pregnant before her father knew.

But many retailers are not effectively pulling together tweets, likes and reviews and matching them against customer lists, transactions, loyalty club memberships, and prospects — which means they are using old dumb marketing techniques in a new smart world.

And missing out on sales.

So online marketing optimization company Monetate, which has access to a huge amount of ecommerce information, has put together the following quick guide for retailers using big data:

photo credit: JD Hancock via photopin cc

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For online shoppers, getting your neatly packaged goods on time is an absolute necessity. Once you’ve added an item to your shopping cart, you want to feel it, hold it, and try it on. Stat.

To give retailers a competitive edge, Shopify announced a partnership today that promises to cut shipping time anywhere from a half to a third. Shopify, a website used by thousands of retailers to build and launch their online store, is integrating with ShipStation, a web-based shipping solution.

“This partnership not only introduces ShipStation to a whole new set of retailers looking for a better shipping solution, but it also offers a new, online retailing option to our current customers,” said Byron Wier, cofounder of ShipStation.

Austin, TX-based ShipStation specializes in order import, batch label creation and returns management software. The startup has also integrated with e-commerce giants, like eBay and Amazon, and processes over 1 million shipping labels each month for over 2,000 online retail stores.

This announcement is one of a recent spate of integrations for Shopify. The company, which competes with Magento and BigCommerce, also teamed up with Stitch Labs, a cloud-based solution for small and medium sized business to manage inventory and orders.

Retailers, this is not a free service. ShipStation is offering a 30 day trial, but after that, it will set you back anywhere from $25 to $145 per month depending on the volume of orders.

Image via Shutterstock

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Apple is sending notices to retailers to stop selling Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus and Galaxy Tab 10.1, a filing by Samsung revealed today.

Foss Patents reports that a filing by Samsung included a note about Apple sending out letters to third parties about the injunction. Samsung is saying that Apple had no right to send these out to its third-party retailers, but the injunction specifies that “officers, directors, partners, agents, servants, employees, attorneys, subsidiaries, and those acting in concert with any of them are enjoined from making, using, offering to sell, or selling within the United States.” Third-party retailers undoubtedly fall into the “those acting in concert” category.

Apple sued Samsung earlier this year, winning injunctions against the Galaxy Nexus smartphone and the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet. The two, Apple says, infringe upon its iPhone and iPad equivalents. Apple at the time said that the devices were “blatant copying” and mentioned packaging, the user interface, and form factor as points of contention.

Apple began sending those notices associated with the Galaxy Nexus on June 3, the same day U.S. Judge Lucy Koh turned down Samsung’s appeal on the injunction. Three days later, however, Judge Koh suspended the injunction.

Less than two weeks after Apple began sending out letters pertaining to the Galaxy Tab 10.1, a U.K. judge said the tablet is “not as cool,” and thereby doesn’t infringe on the iPad.

Check out Apple’s letter below:

VIA FACSIMILE, REGISTERED MAIL, FEDERAL EXPRESS AND REGISTERED AGENT

Re: Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., et al., United States District Court, Northern District of California, Case No. C-11-01846 (LHK)

Dear [recipient]:

We represent Apple Inc. in the above-referenced action.

We enclose a copy of the June 26 preliminary injunction ordered entered by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in this case together with a copy of Apple’s U.S. Design Patent No. D504,889 (the ’889 patent’). With the posting of the requisite bond, the order is now in effect.

The order provides as follows:

[T]he Court issues the following order enjoining the Galaxy Tab 10.1 from sale in the United States: Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Samsung Electronics America, Inc., and Samsung Telecommunications America, Inc., its officers, directors, partners, agents, servants, employees, attorneys, subsidiaries, and those acting in concert with any of them, are enjoined from making, using, offering to sell, or selling within the United States, or importing into the United States, Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer, and any product that is no more than colorably different from this specified product and embodies any design contained in U.S. Design Patent No. D504,889.

(emphasis added).

As the italicized language provides, the order applies not only to the named Samsung entities, but also to anyone “acting in concert” with them. Apple thus believes that the order extends to you because you may be selling, offering to sell, or importing the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer.

Please comply with the order by ceasing immediately to engage in any of the specified acts (e.g., importing, offering to sell, or selling within the United States) in connection with the Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer and any product that is no more than colorably different from it and embodies the ’889 patent’s design. At a minimum, Apple believes compliance with the Court’s order requires immediately removing for sale the Galaxy Tab 10.1 from all physical and online venues under your direction or control.

Please contact the undersigned if you have questions.

Regards,

[signatory]

Enclosures

via Foss Patents; Galaxy Nexus photo via TAKA@P.P.R.S/Flickr

Consumers looking to buy any of Amazon’s Kindle products from Target in the coming weeks should look elsewhere: Starting later this month, Target will end sales of Amazon’s e-readers and Android tablet.

Target says its decision to ditch the Kindle is a result of its desire to improve the customer experience, in a statement sent to The Verge this morning. A leaked memo from last night indicated that Target would replenish its stocks until May 13th. Online, the shifts seem to have taken effect immediately, with not a single Kindle appearing in a search on Target’s website.

“Target continually evaluates its product assortment to deliver the best quality and prices for our guests,” the statement reads.

There are a lot of interesting bits in the statement, but none so notable as the curiously explicit mentioning of Barnes & Noble’s Nook towards its end. “We will continue to offer our guests a full assortment of eereaders and supporting accessories including the Nook,” the statement says. (Target also sells Sony and Kobo’s e-readers, but those barely count in the grand e-reader battle between Amazon and B&N.)

Which leads to a fairly obvious question: Is this whole thing the result of a particularly savvy deal by Barnes & Noble? It sure seems that way. Inking an exclusivity agreement with Target would be a smart effort at squeezing Amazon out of the physical retail space. With a fresh $300 million investment in its Nook subsidiary from Microsoft, B&N finally has the clout to pursue such arrangements.

And that’s a big deal. One of the key reasons Amazon works with retailers like Target is it gives consumers the ability to use the Kindle in person before they buy it. Amazon, lacking physical stores, can’t do this on its own — hence why partners like Target and Best Buy are so important.

If Barnes & Noble is actually behind Target’s change of heart, the move could be the precursor to a major announcement for the two companies.

We’ve reached out to Amazon and will update when the company responds.

Photo: Devindra Hardawar/VentureBeat

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

Beauty retailer Sephora is testing an iPad program in select stores this month, inspired by what it believes is a close relationship between its customers and Apple.

The iPads have been introduced to 20 stores around the U.S. with the goal of providing extra product details that could only be offered through the Internet.

For instance, Sephora’s website provides customer-written product reviews that can be categorized by location, skin color, skin sensitivity, and age. The iPads come with a custom Sephora app installed and give a buyer access to information such as whether a lotion gave anyone with a certain skin type a rash.

Those with allergies can also find product ingredients through the in-store app. You can review purchase histories as well, in the case you want to buy the same blush you bought previously, but can’t remember the color’s name.

Apple, in particular, struck a chord for Sephora because of the company’s existing hold on Sephora customers.

“We see a high overlap between Apple products and our consumers,” Julie Bornstein, senior vice president for Sephora Direct, said in an interview with VentureBeat. “We decided to build an app for the iPhone specifically … Once you commit to building an app for one product, you can leverage the other products.”

When Sephora was looking to create a mobile website, it realized that the majority of visitors to its non-mobile-friendly site were from iOS devices. Indeed, after launching the custom mobile site, nearly 70 percent of its visitors were from iPhones alone — a number Bornstein notes is the inverse of Android’s popularity with the broader public.

For that reason, Sephora decided to create an iOS application, soon followed by a consumer-facing iPad app. The iPad app used in-store is not available elsewhere.

We asked Bornstein if she believed Apple and Sephora use similar marketing tactics, which created the customer overlap. “There’s probably some brand parallel [at Sephora] to the brand positioning that Apple has,” she said.

She also noted that Sephora finds Apple product users to be more active with their devices, which may drive sales.

But the in-store employees, or “cast members” as Sephora calls them, shouldn’t be concerned. Though the iPads are there to answer people’s questions and drive sales, Bornstein doesn’t believe this technology is going to replace or reduce the staff.

You can find the program in the cities listed below:

• Ala Moana, Hawaii
• Aventura, Florida
• Boulder, Colorado
• Forum, Las Vegas
• Lenox, Atlanta Georgia
• Meatpacking, NYC
• Oxmoor, Kentucky
• Powell, San Francisco
• Prudential Center, Boston
• Rockingham, North Carolina
• Roosevelt Field, Garden City, NY
• Santa Monica
• Soho, NYC
• South Coast Plaza, Costa Mesa, CA
• Times Square, NYC
• Towsen, Maryland
• Union Square, NYC
• Venetian, Las Vegas
• Virginia Beach, VA
• Washington Square
• Portland, OR

July 9-10, 2013
San Francisco, CA

Early Bird Tickets on Sale

More than just a nifty mobile app for consumers, Shopkick is also helping its retail and brand partners generate significant revenue. The company announced today that it drove more than $110 million in revenue to its partners in 2011, its first full year in operation.

The news comes on the heels of Shopkick’s massive growth announcements of 3 million active users and over 1 billion offers viewed. The success of the free Shopkick app, which allows consumers to earn rewards and deals simply by walking into a store, shows how mobile devices are quickly becoming important to in-store shopping in the real world.

“Some mobile services drive people out of stores, not into stores, with online comparison shopping that turn stores into ‘showrooms.’ Shopkick does the opposite,” Shopkick CEO Cyriac Roeding said in a statement today. “It’s a win-win-win between retailers, brands, and consumers.”

The company’s patent-pending technology has now been deployed in over 4,000 stores and 250 malls cross America. Recent partner brands include Old Navy, Disney, and Levi’s.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based Shopkick has raised a total of $20 million from Kleiner, Greylock Partners, Reid Hoffman (investing as an individual before he became a partner at Greylock), Citi Growth Ventures & Innovation Group, and Ron Conway’s SV Angel.

Emerging social network Pinterest, an addictive site that lets people spotlight products and items they like, is helping drive increasing amounts of traffic to retailers, according to a new infographic by Monetate.

Pinterest, which attracted nearly 11 million unique visitors in mid-December, is now one of the top 10 social networking sites. It’s one of the rare cases of a social network generating strong word-of-mouth interest without much help from the tech community. The site is especially popular with females and arts and crafts enthusiasts between the ages of 25 and 44.

Monetate’s new research is bundled up into a nice infographic below. Besides highlighting the site’s increasingly awesome traffic, it also points out that “total same-store referral traffic from Pinterest to five specialty apparel retails rose 389 percent from July to December 2011.” The company also spotlights that Pinterest is driving more referral traffic than Google+, as of late November, with Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Yahoo ahead of Pinterest.

Palo Alto-based Pinterest has thus far raised more than $37 million in funding from a strong list of investors, including Andreessen Horowitz, Bessemer Venture Partners, Ron Conway, Max Levchin, and Michael Birch.

You can view the engaging infographic below:

Gamers who bought those copies of Deus Ex: Human Revolution will receive a $50 gift card from GameStop and a two-for-one deal on used games as part of the arrangement. The retailer is backpedaling after saying it did not want to promote competition from OnLive, since the company is reportedly testing its own game streaming service. The Federal Trade Commission did not comment on whether the practice was anti-competitive when contacted by VentureBeat.

GameStop officials told VentureBeat that Square Enix, the publisher behind Deus Ex: Human Revolution, pre-packaged the coupon without informing GameStop — prompting GameStop to pull the coupons out of the game packages. The brick-and-mortar game retailer instructed its employees to open copies of the game and remove the code. Gamers who purchased a PC version of the game were originally treated to a free copy of the game on OnLive, which runs games on powerful remote servers.

“We pulled the coupons because, like all retailers, we prefer not to promote our competitors and their competing offerings and services in our stores,” a GameStop spokesperson told VentureBeat. “Unfortunately, the coupon was packed without our prior knowledge.”

OnLive runs games on powerful remote servers and streams the games like a YouTube video to a web browser. The service can run triple-A titles like Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood on computers and even tablets that don’t have a lot of processing power. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is one of the first few high-profile titles to launch simultaneously on OnLive and PC and gaming consoles like the Xbox 360.

“We were part of their overall campaign, they have a long manufacturing cycle,” OnLive chief executive Steve Perlman told VentureBeat. “It’s the beginning of a trend — we have had some deals with indie downloads like the Humble Indie Bundle, we’re doing distribution inside the box.”

GameStop still relies on sales of physical copies of games and a large part of its revenue comes from buying and selling used physical copies of games. The company is facing stiff competition from digital distribution services like Steam and streaming services like Gaikai and OnLive.

Meanwhile, OnLive has deals with a number of other upcoming triple-A titles like THQ’s upcoming Space Marine and Saints Row: The Third, along with Batman: Arkham City, a sequel to the smash hit Batman: Arkham Asylum. The company will soon run those same high-end triple-A titles on tablet computers, mobile devices like the iPad and devices running Google’s mobile operating system Android.

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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Gamers who purchase a PC version of the game are treated to a free copy of the game on OnLive, which runs games on powerful remote servers. The brick-and-mortar game retailer is instructing its employees to open copies of the game and remove the code. GameStop officials confirmed to VentureBeat that Square Enix, the publisher behind Deus Ex: Human Revolution, pre-packaged the coupon without informing GameStop — prompting the company to pull the coupons out of the game packages.

“We pulled the coupons because, like all retailers, we prefer not to promote our competitors and their competing offerings and services in our stores,” a GameStop spokesperson told VentureBeat. “Unfortunately, the coupon was packed without our prior knowledge.”

OnLive runs games on powerful remote servers and streams the games like a YouTube video to a web browser. The service can run triple-A titles like Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood on computers and even tablets that don’t have a lot of processing power. Deus Ex: Human Revolution is one of the first few high-profile titles to launche simultaneously on OnLive and PC and gaming consoles like the Xbox 360.

“We were part of their overall campaign, they have a long manufacturing cycle,” OnLive chief executive Steve Perlman told VentureBeat. “It’s the beginning of a trend — we have had some deals with indie downloads like the Humble Indie Bundle, we’re doing distribution inside the box.”

OnLive representatives told VentureBeat the company didn’t have anything new to add.

GameStop is reportedly testing its own game streaming service, which would compete with OnLive when launched. The company still relies on sales of physical copies of games and a large part of its revenue comes from buying and selling used physical copies of games. The company is facing stiff competition from digital distribution services like Steam and streaming services like Gaikai and OnLive.

Meanwhile, OnLive has deals with a number of other upcoming triple-A titles like THQ’s upcoming Space Marine and Saints Row: The Third, along with Batman: Arkham City, a sequel to the smash hit Batman: Arkham Asylum. The company will soon run those same high-end triple-A titles on tablet computers, mobile devices like the iPad and devices running Google’s mobile operating system Android.

“You will see more combo deals like this,” Perlman said. “Everyone who buys a disk can get it on other devices too — you buy the disk and get it everywhere.”

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GamesBeat 2013 is our fifth annual conference on disruption in the video game market. You'll get 360-degree perspectives from top gaming executives, developers, and analysts on what’s to come in the industry. Our theme this year is “The Battle Royal.” Check out full event details here, and grab your early-bird tickets here!

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The funding will be used for product development as well as for hiring engineers and salespeople, according to a company announcement posted Tuesday.

Consumers can download the AisleBuyer mobile application for iPhone or Android, create an account by adding their credit card information and begin scanning items at select retailers. AisleBuyer notes that it is currently working on being available at more than 19,000 locations.

After scanning an item’s barcode, the app displays the product’s information and also adds it to a mobile shopping cart. While shopping, the AisleBuyer app pushes deals and promotions offered by the store to the shopper, who can activate them if he or she is interested. When done shopping, the customer simply picks which credit card to use and applies it to the total in the shopping cart. A digital receipt is then available for confirmation.

For retailers, the company provides a web-based tool for accessing analytics on what shoppers are doing in-store, like scanning items and purchases. If a store decides to run a promotion, it can then track foot traffic and conversions that might be a result of the effort.

Mobile payments is a rapidly growing arena with major players like PayPal, Visa, Square as well as others all looking for a share of the market. Most notably, Google recently stepped into mobile payments with Google Wallet, an Android app that will house important information, like your credit card numbers. AisleBuyer may be at a major disadvantage against well known competitors, but on the other hand, there is currently no clear leader in the mobile payments space.

The Boston-based company, founded in 2009, secured the round of funding from Old Willow Partners, who also participated in the company’s initial funding in 2010.