Location Intelligence Platform Aims at Local Marketing

Local ID has closed a $1.9 million seed round of funding led by Crosscut Ventures. Local ID is a local intelligence platform that provides multi-unit brands with the data, tools and process needed to maximize their local marketing efforts, according to the company.

Other investors in the round included Technicolor, TenOneTen, Baroda Ventures, Double M Partners, Tallwave, Wavemaker Partners and Queens Bridge Venture Partners. 

Founded by a team with more than 60 years of collective retail experience, Local ID is a cloud-based platform that provides brands with visibility into each store’s trade area. For example, Local ID:

• surfaces local events that present timely and contextual marketing opportunities;
• identifies competitive intrusions;
• provides proactive preparation for weather events; and
• incorporates a wealth of other data on the hundreds of local marketing opportunities taking place each day within a store’s trade area.

With brick and mortar representing 94 percent of the $4.5 trillion retail sales market, according to eMarketer, Local ID gives multi-unit brands an edge in capturing a larger share of this vast but extremely competitive market, the company said.

“Local ID is the first local intelligence platform designed to solve at-scale local store marketing for large brick and mortar brands,” said Alex Nocifera, Founder & CEO of Local ID. “Our dynamic, enterprise platform will increase same store sales and traffic for our customers by systemizing the way they plan, execute and track their local marketing activities. This funding, along with the extensive outreach we’ve done over the last year with large brands, has validated the timeliness of our solution to solve brands’ decentralized, inefficient inability to execute and measure local marketing at scale. Overall, I could not be more excited about our team, the early market signals and the product we are taking to the market.”

Local ID is a single-source solution that will centralize all local store marketing programs, institutionalize market-specific knowledge and systemize best practices across the enterprise. The platform leverages Esri mapping software, integrates multiple data streams and then custom curates brand opportunities for every store in the system. The core pillars include:

 Store Profiles – A dynamic database of every store in a brand’s system providing visibility into every location and activity

People Profiles – Details, activities and insights of all employees engaged in local marketing at any level

Relevant Opportunities – Custom curated, brand relevant opportunities in each market

Marketing Activities  – An innovative and engaging task management tool for tracking and systemizing local marketing activities

The company will use the new funding to invest in product development, research and acquiring key talent. Nocifera previously served as founder and CEO of both Ripple TV and Circle Street, two venture-backed start-ups focused on helping big brands solve complex local challenges. Ripple TV was acquired by TargetCast Networks (now part of Brite Media Group). Circle Street was acquired by Valassis, the largest local advertising company for promotional media to retail and CPG brands.

“Local ID has the opportunity to be the Salesforce.com of the trillion dollar local marketing space by solving the conundrum large, multi-unit brands face in executing successful local store strategies at the enterprise level,” said Brian Garrett, co-founder and managing director of Crosscut Ventures. “It’s a massive, untapped market and one that the Local ID team, with deep experience in RetailTech, is perfectly situated to address.”