Start-up Adimo eyes global growth with £1m funding deal

A Glasgow technology start-up that already has some of the world's biggest brands among its customers has secured £1 million of funding to accelerate its expansion.

Adimo helps brands convert their digital marketing campaigns into shopping baskets. Picture: Ian Georgeson

Adimo, which works with consumer goods giants including Nestle, P&G and PepsiCo, has won backing from investors including the Scottish Investment Bank, Stirling-based angel syndicate ESM Investments, Galvanise Capital and Patrick Griffith, co-founder of digital agency Havas Work Club.

The firm, which has developed software that embeds a “shopping basket” function into digital marketing campaigns, will use the funding to expand its commercial team and win new customers worldwide.

Chief executive Richard Kelly, who previously worked in digital advertising, founded the company in 2012 after realising that, despite spending billions of pounds on awareness marketing campaigns, consumer goods firms were “getting very little back in terms of data”.

Adimo’s platform integrates with marketing channels including display adverts, landing pages, websites, social media and video.

Shoppers can select products they see and add them directly to their online supermarket basket for later purchase with the rest of their weekly shop.

Adimo then analyses which products have been viewed, added to online shopping baskets, and the revenue generated, and links that data to specific marketing campaigns.

“Our technology integrates with any form of marketing to make it shoppable, shortening the path to purchase, putting brands in baskets and providing valuable behavioural data about customer decision-making to clients,” Kelly added.

200 Voices: find out more about the people who have shaped Scotland

Purchased products are automatically added to the shopper’s “favourites” list, increasing the chance of repeat purchases. Up to 70 per cent of items bought from online supermarkets are now from such lists.

Adimo has already added more than a million products to baskets for its clients and its technology is now integrated with over 100 retailers across 20 countries.

Sean Douglas, an e-commerce digital director at PepsiCo, said consumer goods companies are increasingly looking at how to maximise digital marketing spend and understand the impact of campaigns on customers.

“We believe Adimo is a radical and highly compelling solution that allows frictionless path to purchase. The technology solution makes for a seamless integration and we’ve been very encouraged with the results following our initial trials.”

Kerry Sharp, head of Scottish Investment Bank, said Adimo was an “extremely exciting” business given the scale of the market opportunity and the quality of the brands the company is already working with.

She said: “We are delighted to support the company’s growth plans by participating in this funding round.”

Click here to ‘Like’ The Scotsman Business on Facebook