Cymbio, which connects brands with markets, raises $7M

Cymbio, a startup creating a product that connects brands with markets, today closed a $7 million series A round led by Vertex Ventures. The Tel Aviv, Israel-based company says the funds will be used to expand Cymbio’s footprint across R&D, sales, and marketing.

Brands manage dozens to thousands of digital sales channels. Setting up and connecting to marketplaces while navigating retailers’ systems and requirements can be a significant challenge, particularly when factoring in the uptick in ecommerce activity attributable to the pandemic. Consumer spending in Q4 2020 with U.S. merchants alone increased 32.1% year-over-year, according to U.S. Department of Commerce figures.

Founded in 2015 by childhood best friends Roy Avidor and Mor Lavi, Cymbio’s platform integrates with both brands’ and retailers’ internal systems, leveraging automation technology to handle setup, onboarding, and daily management of product data, imagery, inventory, orders, and more. Cymbio claims to enable things like real-time, cross-platform inventory and order updates by replacing manual tasks with preconfigured rules.

Cymbio customers get a product catalog showing their products, product images, and product details relevant to their market partners. Information and pricing are automatically updated and the data is reformatted to meet a retailer’s requirements. All retailers can be managed from a single hub, including marketplaces, department stores, and boutiques. And inventory is updated in real time and sent based on each retailer’s formats and desired frequencies.

Cymbio also automates return, shipping, and cancelation processes. For example, it can create acceptance roles for orders or trigger refunds and notifications when returns are initiated by customers on marketplaces.

Cymbio claims to support more than 600 retailers, marketplaces, and department stores across the U.S., Canada, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region. Shoe brand Camper, a Cymbio client, says that it notched 67% year-over-year growth in wholesale sales via drop ship (where sellers accept customer orders but don’t keep goods sold in stock) and marketplaces after adopting the Cymbio platform. Melissa Shoes, another customer, says that average revenue increased by 70% while average units went up 42% as the number of assortments climbed 2.8 times.

“As retail is in its challenging moments, Cymbio brings a new approach for business partnerships between brands and retailers,” Melissa founder and CEO Michele Levy said. “Their platform enables us to strengthen our sales capabilities with each of our partners while generating mutual growth with low risk.”

Payoneer founder Yuval Tal also participated in Cymbio’s round, along with existing investors Udian Investments and Ron Zuckerman. It’s the company’s first public fundraising round to date.