Symbiosys, an innovative advertising tech startup that’s just two years old, is transforming the way retailers and product brands collaborate. The company recently secured a significant $9 million in Series A funding, led by the Seattle-area venture capital firm, Fuse. This investment is a testament to the startup’s potential in the burgeoning $45 billion retail media market, which is flourishing thanks to substantial advertising revenues for retailers, partly fueled by Amazon’s successful ad business model.
Symbiosys specializes in aiding retailers to sell off-site advertising, which promotes products from various brands on platforms like Google search and Instagram. The company’s strategy is to enhance performance marketing collaboration between retailers and brands. This approach leverages first-party measurement data to drive traffic effectively to retailer sites and enables retailers to expand their retail media networks efficiently.
One of the standout features of Symbiosys is its real-time reporting and analytics capabilities, alongside a unique collaborative bidding technology. This technology allows retailers and brands to jointly bid on off-site product ad campaigns, creating a more cohesive and effective advertising approach.
The brain behind Symbiosys is CEO and founder Bashar Kachachi, who brings a wealth of experience from his tenure as an advertising leader at Google and over a decade at Microsoft, working on ad-related products. “We’re doing something very novel,” Kachachi asserts, highlighting the unique approach of the company.
The leadership team also includes notable figures like President John Roswech, formerly chief revenue officer at Marchex and HookLogic, and engineering leader Dan Cooke, with past experiences at Criteo, HookLogic, and WorldQuant.
Based in Bellevue, Washington, Symbiosys now boasts a team of over 20 employees and has amassed total funding of $11.5 million to date. The company’s investor portfolio is impressive, featuring HookLogic co-founder Jonathan Opdyke, Flywheel Digital co-founder Patrick Miller, and Scott Friend, partner at Bain Capital Ventures, who invested as an individual angel.
This influx of capital and expertise positions Symbiosys strategically in the competitive retail media landscape, ready to leverage its innovative technology and unique market approach to make a significant impact.
