clienteling
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Starmount put the internet in the sales associate’s pocket
The Austin software company gave store teams the information online shoppers already had. Its path from mobile checkout to Infor shows why the most useful retail innovation may be the plumbing.
Endear turns the follow-up into a sales floor
The retail CRM gives store associates a longer memory and a way to sell after shoppers leave. Its most useful lesson may be knowing when to send the next text.
BSPK Wants to Remember What the Store Forgot
A luxury sale can begin in a boutique and end on a phone. BSPK gives the person serving the customer a memory that follows both.
Red Ant and the art of the five-minute checkout
Furniture Village cut checkout from 20–30 minutes to five with Red Ant’s retail software. Behind the faster sale is a bigger ambition: giving store associates the information, tools and credit to serve customers wherever they buy.
Mad Mobile Put the Cash Register on a Phone. Now It Wants to Rewrite the Store Around It.
The Tampa company spent 15 years making old commerce systems mobile. A pandemic-era POS acquisition, $70 million in financing, and a new bet on agentic AI have turned that integration trick into a much bigger ambition.
Signals (YC W26)
Signals (legally Material Model, Inc.), also known as Return Signals, is a Y Combinator W26 startup building an AI-powered iMessage revenue channel for direct-to-consumer e-commerce brands. It runs two-way text conversations that check in with buyers after delivery, convert would-be returns into exchanges, and drive repeat purchases. Founded in 2025 by CEO Ilya Valmianski and Alejandro Zaniolo, the two-person San Francisco company reports roughly $30 in incremental repeat revenue per conversation and turns 70% of return intents into exchanges.
Lexer
Lexer is a Customer Data and Experience Platform (CDXP) built for retail and consumer brands. It unifies fragmented data from ecommerce, in-store, loyalty, email and SMS into a single customer view, then layers on analytics, predictive intelligence and activation so marketing, sales and service teams can understand and engage customers in a personalized way. Founded in Melbourne in 2010 and now used by 150+ brands including The Iconic, Rip Curl, Zimmermann and Quiksilver, Lexer positions itself as a retail-specialized alternative to horizontal enterprise CDPs.
NewStore
NewStore is a Boston-based retail technology company that gives brands a mobile-first, cloud platform to run their physical stores. Its modular Omnichannel-as-a-Service bundles an order management system, iPhone-based point of sale, inventory, store fulfillment, clienteling, and native consumer apps into one system, letting store associates check out shoppers, look up inventory, and fulfill online orders from a single device. Founded in 2015 by e-commerce pioneer Stephan Schambach, NewStore serves brands such as Burton, Marine Layer, Vince, Clarks, and G-Star Raw across more than 40 countries.
Lava.ai
Lava.ai is a San Francisco software company that runs a Realtime AI customer-engagement platform for sports teams, live-event venues, retailers and large enterprises. Its engine ties together ticketing, point-of-sale, mobile wallets, apps, parking and live game feeds through 250+ integrations, then uses AI to deliver personalized offers, membership perks, stored-value rewards and clienteling 'in the moment.' Co-founded by TIBCO founder Vivek Ranadive and former TIBCO executive Wen Miao, Lava counts more than 50 franchises and brands - including the NBA, Real Madrid, the LA Rams and the Cleveland Browns - among its users.