eShoppingAdvisor, an Italian startup that challenges the big names in online business by promoting and enhancing the e-commerce activities of Italian SMEs, has closed a €500,000 investment round with the participation of CDP Venture Capital Sgr through its Fondo Acceleratori and Fondo Italia Venture II – Fondo Imprese Sud, for a total investment of €300,000, LVenture Group and a group of business angels.
Accelerated in 2020 by LUISS EnLabs, the LVenture Group’s Acceleration Programme, eShoppingAdvisor focuses on disintermediation and the consequent enhancement of online activities registered through “certified” contact with the merchant. Its platform helps people find the desired product in the virtual shops of small and medium-sized Italian companies, guaranteeing their reputation through the management of reviews, verified through human intervention and specific technical “alerts”, plus an automated moderation procedure.
With more than 110,000 e-commerce sites surveyed and a steady growth trend of 100% month-on-month for verified user reviews, eShoppingAdvisor’s platform is the meeting point between supply and demand outside the usual online shopping routes. With the new capital, the startup aims to develop artificial intelligence (AI) technology to combat untruthful reviews and expand into Spain and the UK.
“eShoppingAdvisor offers a service of growing importance to businesses and digital consumers, who are also increasing in our country, particularly since the start of the health emergency. This injection of capital will allow the startup to implement sophisticated tools such as artificial intelligence, a key technology for the competitiveness of companies that want to meet the demands imposed by the new market and the new consumer.” Commented Francesca Ottier, Head of Fondo Italia Venture II – Fondo Imprese Sud of CDP Venture Capital SGR – Fondo Nazionale Innovazione.
“eShoppingAdvisor is a platform that supports SMEs in the process of selling online at a time when the need to accelerate their digital transition is increasingly central to the recovery of entire sectors of our economy. Sales through ecommerce increased by 26% in 2020, also in response to the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, and we are convinced that with the support of investors the startup can continue to grow even faster in this market trend” said Luigi Mastromonaco, Head of Investments & Growth at LVenture Group.
“My dream is that in the future at least one order in a thousand will be placed securely through our platform“, says eShoppingAdvisor CEO Andrea Carboni, “with knock-on benefits for users and online shop owners. The former, in fact, can verify the service levels and reliability of companies and products even before buying; the latter have an opportunity for visibility that enhances the quality of their offer and facilitates the relationship with the end customer, with repercussions on their online reputation and business. There is also an “ethical” aspect to the project: eShoppingAdvisor supports the purchase from national realities and consequently the real economy on the territory, the logistics of proximity and the improvement of the online offer of small e-commerce. And the taxes due remain in Italy, so in perspective part of the cost paid for a product comes back in the form of state services, unlike what happens with the large purchasing platforms that we all know“.
“Online shops are creating with us a new sustainable ecosystem in which the matrix will no longer be the big online platform to which they associate and to which they give a percentage of their sales. eShoppingAdvisor wants to return the centrality to the shop itself, allowing it to thrive in the market through effective tools to enhance the skills and specificity of each of them“, echoes Andrea Ghiani, Chairman & Co-Founder of eShoppingAdvisor.
