Regina Ye and Francisco Larrain, co-founders of Topsort, have gained invaluable knowledge during the two years since launching their unique advertising startup, powered by auctions.
“You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to be able to actually have really good advertising results,” Ye shared with TechCrunch.
The company generated a buzz in 2022 as it raised a whopping $8 million in seed funding, achieving a valuation of $110 million. Topsort specializes in developing retail media technology that uses auctions to deliver efficient and effective advertising solutions for small businesses.
Frustrated by the complexities of creating ad campaigns on platforms like Meta, Amazon and Google, the duo decided to simplify the process by creating a user-friendly API. This allows clients to easily add elements such as sponsored listings, banner and video ads, and have control over how they are displayed and measured for quality and relevance.
The product quickly gained traction among e-commerce marketplaces of all sizes, with Topsort now being used in 35 countries by companies like Poshmark and Youtravel.me.
“We have tried many things since then and found what works, and last year was incredible growth for us. We grew almost 10 times in terms of revenue, and we have a similar scale of ambition for this year.”
As the company continued to expand, it shifted its focus to target larger enterprises and developed advanced features to cater to their needs. Notable clients now include P&G, General Mills and Danone.
This success caught the attention of investors, resulting in an additional $20 million of Series A funding for Topsort and a significant increase in its post-money valuation to $150 million. The round was led by Upload Ventures, with support from existing investors such as Quiet Capital and Pear Ventures. In total, the company has raised $28.6 million.
Topsort understands that the imminent demise of cookies will greatly impact the advertising industry, and they are determined to address the issue by improving its reputation and user privacy. To achieve this, they created the Cleanroom feature, which allows for the combination of user data without compromising privacy.
“Everyone’s wondering what’s going to happen to advertising after cookies, and we think we have the answer to the clean advertising solution,” Ye stated. “We’ve spent three years making a very solid offering, and today, we probably have the most comprehensive offering of that in the market.”
