Y Combinator startup provides ecommerce data on tap, raises $1.55m

Semantics3 is a startup based in San Francisco that made waves when it entered Y Combinator, a famed startup accelerator in Silicon Valley (disclosure: Tech in Asia is also part of YC). Founded by three National University of Singapore graduates, it’s doing something unique: providing product and pricing data to businesses. “To organize the world’s ecommerce data” is its mission.

Just today, the startup announced it has raised a bridge round worth US$1.55 million from E-Merge and Zillionize. Before that, it raised US$600,000 right after graduating from YC. It now has a team of 17, up from a founding group of five. The startup didn’t reveal exact revenue figures, but claims a 10 to 15 percent month-on-month revenue growth in the past two years.

Semantics3 has APIs for businesses to retrieve product data, including purchase URLs, prices, images, and product names. A mobile shopping app could use the API to pull data from multiple retailers and display it for users. Semantics3 also helps ecommerce companies manage product information by allowing them to push data to its servers.

If you pay more money, the startup can even help you surface insights from your data, via its “data science as a service.”

Will this idea work? Let us know your thoughts below.