Battery Ventures pours $7 million into retail intelligence outfit Smarter Remarketer

Battery Ventures is betting big time on the retail intelligence space.

The Valley venture heavyweights poured $7 million into Smarter Remarketer, an Indianapolis-based startup whose flagship SR2 Big Data platform provides e-commerce sites with actionable intelligence on customer trends and buying habits. Battery was the only investor.

Smarter Remarketer chief executive Howard Bates, 60, breathed a sigh of relief over the negotiations that led to this latest tranche of funding, because, as he said, “We were so happy to get the validation from Battery. Their due diligence process is exhausting.”

The startup was launched in 2010 with $4.2 million from angel investors and is the brainchild of retail marketing expert and co-founder Angel Morales. It employs 27 people, has enjoyed 300 percent growth in less than four years, and counts retail legends SkyMall, Eddie Bauer, and Hugo Boss as clients. Smarter Remarketer makes money by charging licensing fees for their software.

The affable Mr. Bates said his startup’s software extracts and analyzes what he called “texturalized” data on consumers based on their behavioral patterns when perusing e-commerce sites. That data in turn is shared with clients who enjoy a fly-on-the-wall perspective on what their clients are thinking — and buying.

“Our engine creates data sequestration profiles that enable customers to make extremely complex campaigns for retailers based on their customer’s buying habits,” Bates said.

“We’re building very sophisticated (profile) models for the web’s retail environment.”

Launching a startup amongst Indiana’s flat topography was something of a challenge for the Smarter Remarketer team. Raising cash from local investors was initially met with skepticism. As in, “Why would you launch a technology company in Indiana?”

“Somehow, someway, we were able to get this going here,” Bates said.

Smarter Remarketer expects to haul in more than $7 million by the end of 2014.

“Large retailers are responding to what we’re bringing to the table,” Bates said.

As for the numerous analytic and e-commerce companies who also, in varying degrees, occupy the space of Smarter Remarketer, Bates said his startup “complements, rather than competes, with them.”