Regina Yee says she and Topsort co-founder Francisco Larraín have learned a lot in the past two years since launching their auction-based advertising startup.
The company raised $8 million in seed funding in 2022 to value the company at $110 million. Topsort develops retail media technology for small businesses to use auctions as a way to create effective advertising.
They were tired of the complexity of creating ad campaigns on Meta, Amazon, and Google, and created a simple API that users could install. When they start a campaign, customers can add elements like sponsored menus, banner ads, and video ads. They then control how ads are displayed, how ad quality and relevance are measured, and who can launch campaigns.
The founders also realized that their plug-and-play product resonated with e-commerce markets of different sizes. Today, Topsort is used by marketplaces in 35 countries by the likes of Poshmark and Youtravel.me.
“You don't need to be a rocket scientist to get really good advertising results,” Yee told TechCrunch. “We've tried many things since then and found what worked, and last year saw amazing growth for us. We've grown almost 10 times in terms of revenue, and we have a similar scope of ambition for this year.
Topsort has also shifted its focus to be more enterprise-friendly, and has built in more advanced features. It now counts Procter & Gamble, General Mills, and Danone, among others, as its clients.
All this growth excited investors who pumped another $20 million of Series A capital into Topsort along with increasing the valuation to $150 million post-money. Upload Ventures led the round with support from existing investors, including Quiet Capital and Pear Ventures. The company has now raised $28.6 million in total.
The company is now focusing on what happens after the cookies disappear. Topsort wants to correct the ads' reputation as “poor” in terms of user privacy. I created a clean room feature to integrate user data without actually being “scary,” Yee said.
“Everyone is wondering what will happen to advertising after cookies, and we believe we have the solution for a clean advertising solution,” Yi said. “We spent three years creating a very strong offering, and today, we have perhaps the most comprehensive offering on the market.”
