Ecommerce advertising tool Mabaya scores $2.25 million seed round

Companies pay supermarkets to showcase their products right at eye level; Mabaya wants to help online retailers to do the same.

The Tel Aviv startup announced today that it closed a $2.25 seed round to help “support the high demand” for its product. Israel’s Lool Ventures led the investment, and a handful of undisclosed angel investors also participated.

“It’s been done for many years in the physical world. Brands are paying retailers a lot to put the product in the visible part of the shelf,” Mabaya’s CEO, Avi Rabinovich, told VentureBeat. “If it works well in the real world, there’s no reason to not offer shelf placement on the online world.”

Mabaya’s technology is different from native advertising, Rabinovich said, because its algorithms make sure that the products shown are not only relevant to the user experience, but also related to what the user is looking for.

The technology browses online stores to find similar products and brands by “profiling user behavior, and profiling products to offer better and relevant prices.”

Mabaya has retail companies like Shop Direct and South America’s largest ecommerce site, Mercado Libre, in its portfolio. The company’s website also points to Samsung and Microsoft as clients.