Nfinite raises $100M to grow e-commerce by converting product catalogs into 3D assets

Although a product image gives people a good idea of ​​what they’re getting, it doesn’t provide as complete a picture as a physical item. Nfinite bridges that gap with 3D assets, which not only add a touch of excitement to e-commerce sites, but make it easier for customers to see what they’re getting. Infinitely adaptable visual content is sure to help online businesses sell more products, which you can learn more about in the article below.

When shopping online, you don’t have the option to pick up items and view them, but nfinite is working to change the way products are viewed online so they look more real.

The company, headquartered in France, has developed a visual e-merchandising platform in SaaS mode with tools for creating 3D images for e-commerce. Based on nfinite’s performance over the past year, this is a ripe area for e-commerce and venture capitalists.

Here’s why: The company has increased its annual recurring revenue 10x over the past year and has been adopted by three of the top five global retailers, Alexandre de Vigan, founder and CEO of nfinite, told TechCrunch. And, the company announced a $100 million Series B funding round on Tuesday, which quickly follows a $15 million Series A funding round announced in February.

The new round was led by Insight Partners and included participation from existing investor US Venture Partners and gives nfinite a total of $130 million in venture backed funding since the company was founded in 2017.

At the time, de Vigan and his team started the company to provide better online visual experiences for real estate, creating computerized images to sell apartments. A year later, they realized there was a bigger market in e-commerce and focused there to increase traffic and sales. So, instead of showcasing an apartment, its imagery was used for furniture. Over the next two years, nfinite expanded its platform to different industries and officially launched the version it is today in 2021.

De Vigan explained that with e-commerce expected to grow by 50% to reach $7.4 trillion in sales over the next four years, the only touchpoint is product viewing.

“Consumers want more and more, but e-commerce customers struggle with old static photos,” he added. “We decided to create an e-merchandising SaaS platform to create unlimited visuals via desktop so that you can showcase your products. Our mission is for buyers to have a better understanding of the product and more confidence to buy online.

He went on to say that a photo is “frozen in time”, it cannot be updated or personalized, but through the use of computer generated images it can be transformed into 3D so that it can be a living visual that is both customizable and updatable.

For example, you can take a sofa, show it off in a living room, and then change the background for the season or steer it towards trends. The impact is better imagery to generate more product metrics, which means more conversion and lower return rates, and saving money for customers. De Vigan estimates, on average, double-digit savings and improved metrics for its e-commerce clients.

In addition, nfinite also provides visual assets compatible with Web2 and Web3 applications so that the future potential of the metaverse is realized, e-commerce customers will already have this capability.

Now that the company has laid the foundation for large-scale 3D imaging automation, de Vigan intends to roll out the new funding to scale nfinite’s sales and marketing teams. The company started in Europe with half of its R&D and market in France and now its customer-facing operations are in the United States In 2021 the company had no customers in the United States and now the region represents 80% of the company. turnover and 40% of logos.

The company’s employee base has grown to 100 from 40 a year ago, and de Vigan expects to have 250 employees over the next 12 months. It also provides hundreds of thousands of images that will number in the millions in the next few years.

“E-merchandising is the next revolution in e-commerce for us, and therefore the next phase is to evolve in this category in the United States, Europe and Asia so that we become the norm,” he said. -he adds.

Meanwhile, other companies have also found some love in venture capital for their merchandising approaches. For example, Lucky raised $3 million for its plug-in-play API for Shopify businesses while Singapore-based Trax received $640 million in Series E funding for its store shelf management technology. .

As part of the investment, Rebecca Liu-Doyle, managing director of Insight Partners, has now joined nfinite’s board of directors.

“nfinite is redefining the e-merchandising space with a platform that enables high-quality visual content to be produced at scale – and the largest and most innovative online retailers are already taking notice,” he said. she said in a statement. “The business has incredible growth potential and we couldn’t be more excited to partner with Alex and the nfinite team to help them realize it.”

The original article can be found on TechCrunch.