Irish startup Pointy raises $12 million to help offline retailers become visible in search engines

Irish startup Pointy raises $12 million to help offline retailers become visible in search engines

Dublin-founded startup Pointy that helps brick-and-mortar retailers to survive the fight against e-commerce has landed a €12 million Series B round led by Polaris Partners and Vulcan Capital. The fresh funding brings the total amount raised by the company to $19 million.

Pointy's main goal is to make the local stores visible online. Its “Pointy box” device connects to a store's barcode scanner, automatically lists the products online, and does some search engine optimisation. The shoppers would still have to go to the store to buy items they're interested in, but it could still be faster than waiting for Amazon to deliver them.

“We started Pointy to help local stores be more visible online,” said CEO and co-founder of Pointy Mark Cummins. “It seemed crazy to us that people had to wait two days for Amazon to deliver a product that could be 100 yards away in a local store. Our message to retailers was ‘Don't lose your local customers to companies like Amazon, just because shoppers don't know what you have in stock.’”

Pointy's client stores are located across all US states, as well as in Canada, the UK, Ireland, and Australia. The capital injection comes shortly after the company announced a partnership agreement with Point of Sale (POS) giants Square, Clover, and Lightspeed, which now provide access to the Pointy platform for their users.

_In the photo: Pointy co-founders Mark Cummins and Charles Bibby_

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