The AI retention engine that remembers the shoppers cookies forget - and emails them before they're gone.
Most online stores have the same quiet leak. A shopper browses, adds something to the cart, then disappears - no account, no email captured, no way to reach them again. Industry estimates put the share of abandoning shoppers who never receive a follow-up email near 88%. Instant, a company founded in Sydney in 2021, built its business around closing that gap.
Today Instant is an AI-powered retention marketing platform for ecommerce brands. It identifies anonymous shoppers, holds onto their data past the point where cookies expire, and sends AI-generated email and SMS timed to the moment a person is most likely to buy. The company reports that more than 1,500 direct-to-consumer brands now use it and that its retention flows have generated over $1 billion in incremental revenue for customers.
What makes the company worth a closer look is not just the numbers - it's the path. Instant did not start here.
When Liam Millward and William Gao launched Instant, the product was a one-click checkout tool. The pitch was simple: the average online purchase took around 17 clicks, and Instant wanted to cut that to one. Blackbird Ventures led a $2.2 million pre-seed, with angels including the founders of Zip and Scalapay and a founding COO of Affirm.
Checkout is a crowded, hard-won market. Rather than force it, the founders rebuilt the company around a different problem - retention - and relaunched in 2025 as an AI email and SMS platform. The second bet found traction the first one hadn't: Instant says it reached $1 million in ARR in under 70 days and grew revenue 10x over the following eight months.
"Brands want technology that does the work and drives revenue. Instant AI has become mission critical."
Liam Millward, Co-Founder & CEOInstant packages retention into a set of AI-driven tools a brand can switch on without hand-building each flow. The core idea: the software identifies who to reach, writes the message, and picks the moment.
Generates personalized email copy from each shopper's individual behavior and purchase history.
Lifts email opt-ins and keeps customer data alive beyond cookie expiration to recognize anonymous shoppers.
Sends optimized text messages timed to peak purchase moments across the shopper journey.
11+ pre-built flows including abandoned-cart recovery, with dynamic product content and send-time optimization.
Runs continuous, automated A/B testing so campaigns keep improving without manual setup.
The original product that reduced the average 17 clicks to buy online down to a single tap.
Instant frames its case around measurable ROI rather than send volume. The reported jump in average customer return - and the memory advantage over cookie-based tools - is the pitch in one picture.
Instant's customers are direct-to-consumer and ecommerce brands - the kind that live and die on repeat purchase and email revenue. Named users include July Luggage, Peppermayo, Fayt the Label, STAX, Toys R Us, Liquid IV, ThirdLove, David Protein, Xero Shoes and The Collagen Co. Some lean on it heavily: the company points to one brand running 51% of its monthly revenue through Instant, and another adding more than $1 million in incremental revenue each month.
Instant competes in the same neighborhood as Klaviyo, Attentive, Yotpo and Sendlane - the email and SMS platforms that DTC brands already know. Its wedge is the anonymous-shopper problem: rather than only messaging the contacts a brand has captured, Instant emphasizes identifying visitors outside cookie-based tracking and letting AI agents build and run the flows. In a market moving toward a cookieless future, "remembering more shoppers" is a pointed positioning.
"Instant is a clear example of AI agents driving real, measurable outcomes for teams."
Adam Coccari, Managing Director, HubSpot VenturesStarted his first business at 14 - a digital travel magazine that reached ~50k monthly readers and partnered with roughly 190 Australian councils. Leads Instant's product and commercial direction.
A full-time software engineer at 17 and a tech and product lead at WiseTech before co-founding Instant. Holds a Bachelor of Computer Science from UNSW.
Liam Millward and William Gao launch Instant as a one-click checkout tool, raising a $2.2M pre-seed led by Blackbird Ventures.
Instant pivots to AI-powered email and SMS retention marketing and reaches $1M ARR in under 70 days.
Hummingbird Ventures leads an $18M round at a reported ~$100M valuation, with Blackbird, TEN13 and Reinventure participating.
A strategic investment pushes total funding past $30M as Instant reports 1,500+ brands and 10x ARR growth in 8 months.
| Round | Amount | Date | Lead / Notable Investors |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pre-Seed | $2.2M | 2021 | Blackbird Ventures; angels from Zip, Scalapay, Affirm |
| Series A | $18M (reported extended to ~$28.3M) | 2025 | Hummingbird Ventures, Blackbird, TEN13, Reinventure |
| Strategic | Undisclosed (total >$30M) | Jul 2026 | HubSpot Ventures |
Figures per public reporting. Valuation cited at ~$100M at Series A close, with up to ~$157M reported after an extended round. Amounts approximate.
"Brands want technology that does the work and drives revenue. Instant AI has become mission critical."
Liam Millward - Co-Founder & CEO"Instant is a clear example of AI agents driving real, measurable outcomes for teams."
Adam Coccari - HubSpot VenturesInstant is an AI-powered retention marketing platform that helps ecommerce brands identify anonymous shoppers, recover abandoned carts and send AI-generated email and SMS timed to when shoppers are most likely to buy.
It was founded in 2021 in Sydney by Liam Millward (CEO) and William Gao (CTO), who were in their late teens at the time.
A $2.2M pre-seed in 2021 and an $18M Series A (reported extended toward ~$28.3M) in 2025 led by Hummingbird Ventures, plus a 2026 strategic investment from HubSpot Ventures that pushed total funding past $30M.
More than 1,500 direct-to-consumer and ecommerce brands, including July Luggage, STAX, Peppermayo, Liquid IV, ThirdLove and Xero Shoes.
Instant emphasizes identifying anonymous shoppers outside cookie-based tracking and using AI agents to build and run retention flows automatically, rather than relying on manually configured campaigns.