Skip to main content

Soda Says, a curated consumer electronics retail platform, launches in the U.S.

Grace Gould has spent her life thinking about the intersection of retail and tech. She started out in Apple Retail, and then moved on to Index Ventures where she worked on early stage investments. She then worked at PCCH International as the VP of Global Retail Strategy, working with companies and hardware makers to develop, manufacture, package and distribute products.

But throughout her career, Gould has always seen a hole in the consumer electronics retail space.

“The interesting thing about consumer electronics is that you have these brands — Apple stores, Microsoft stores, Samsung stores &mdash that sell a very limited number of products,” said Gould. “And then you have big box retailers like Best Buy. No one is doing an interesting lifestyle business within consumer electronics.”

That’s where Soda Says comes in.

Soda Says is an ecommerce marketplace focused on lifestyle gadgets, such as the Elvie Smart Breast Pump and the Gingko Edge alarm clock.

The company curates useful, aesthetically pleasing gadgets and puts them in categories like Accessories, Wellness, Lifestyle and Kids, with a specific aim to help small hardware companies grow.

Today, Soda Says launches in the United States with a new vertical: women’s sex tech.

As it stands now, there isn’t really a retail experience that makes sense for women’s sex tech. Customers either have to wander into a sex toy store or go for a little internet adventure. But Soda Says is taking an offline approach to this online business, partnering with department stores like Nieman Marcus and Nordstrom to offer pop-up experiences where shoppers already are.

The Sex Tech collection includes products from brands such as Dame, MysteryVibe, and Le Wand.

Soda Says operates on a hybrid model, sometimes buying inventory of products for resale and other times simply listing the product on the website.

The company has raised a total of $2.5 million from lead investor UK-based LocalGlobe, with participation from investors including ADV, and founder and CEO of PCH International Liam Casey, among others.



from Startups – TechCrunch https://tcrn.ch/2XekFmf
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Thousands of cryptocurrency projects are already dead

Two sites that are actively cataloging failed crypto projects, Coinopsy and DeadCoins , have found that over a 1,000 projects have failed so far in 2018. The projects range from true abandonware to outright scams and include BRIG , a scam by two “brothers,” Jack and Jay Brig, and Titanium , a project that ended in an SEC investigation. Obviously any new set of institutions must create their own sets of rules and that is exactly what is happening in the blockchain world. But when faced with the potential for massive token fundraising, bigger problems arise. While everyone expects startups to fail, the sheer amount of cash flooding these projects is a big problem. When a startup has too much fuel too quickly the resulting conflagration ends up consuming both the company and the founders and there is little help for the investors. These conflagrations happen everywhere are a global phenomenon. Scam and dead ICOs raised $1 billion in 2017 with 297 questionable startups in the mix. The
Post a Comment
Read more

Dance launches its e-bike subscription service in Berlin

German startup Dance is launching its subscription service in its hometown Berlin. For a flat monthly fee of €79 (around $93 at today’s exchange rate), users will get a custom-designed electric bike as well as access to an on-demand repair and maintenance service. Founded by the former founders of SoundCloud and Jimdo , the company managed to raise some significant funding before launching its service. BlueYard led the startup’s seed round while HV Capital (formerly known as HV Holtzbrinck Ventures) led Dance’s €15 million Series A round, which represented $17.7 million at the time. E-bike subscription service Dance closes $17.7M Series A, led by HV Holtzbrinck Ventures The reason why Dance needed so much capital is that the company has designed its own e-bike internally. Called the Dance One, it features an aluminum frame and weighs around 22kg (48.5lb). It has a single speed and it relies on its electric motor to help you go from 0 to 25kmph. And the best part is that you
Post a Comment
Read more