Ownit Launches Connected Checkout to Help Direct-to-consumer Brands Lift Conversion by Bringing Together the Largest Social, Commerce, and Payment Platforms in a Single Shopping Experience
The company also raised $8M in seed funding from Caffeinated Capital, SciFi VC, GGV Capital, Abstract Ventures, among others
Today, Ownit announced it has launched its core product, Ownit Connected Checkout links, to help brands drive sales conversion. This checkout experience allows brands to easily sell products with one tap at the point of discovery. Whether from a social media post, email, text message, or an online ad, when a shopper clicks an Ownit Connected Checkout link, they are instantly delivered their best recommended buying options based on price, shipping cost, delivery time, promotions, loyalty programs, and return policies. This frictionless checkout experience helps shoppers quickly make the best purchase decision without manually researching and comparing all available shopping options.
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To make it all happen, Ownit brings together some of the biggest companies that generally do not work together. Ownit integrates with commerce platforms including Shopify and Amazon, payment gateways Apple Pay, Google Pay, Shop Pay and PayPal to allow direct-to-consumer brands to grow their business on social platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.
“It has never been easier to start an ecommerce brand, but it’s never been harder to grow one,” said Co-Founder and CEO Payman Nejati. “Brands are increasingly having to spend more to bring customers to a leaky funnel with cart abandonment rates north of 75%. Checkout is proving to be the ultimate battleground with over $3B investments in the past 18 months. A lot of great companies are focusing their efforts on checkout at the point of purchase. We believe the next frontier is checkout at the point of discovery, and Ownit Connected Checkout links are our first product to pioneer this vision.”
Founded in 2021 by ecommerce veterans Payman Nejati (CEO), Evan Shiue (CFO/COO) and Joel Tan (CTO), the company’s founders bring 50 years of combined experience creating the world’s most innovative checkout experiences, including at Amazon, Walmart, Standard Cognition, and Anycart. Brought together by a shared obsession with creating the most frictionless online checkout experience for both brands and shoppers, Ownit’s founding team has created a product that doubles sales conversion.
The company also announced it has raised $8M in seed financing from Caffeinated Capital, SciFi VC, GGV Capital, Abstract Ventures, and angel investors that include founders and executives of companies including Meta, Pinterest, Honey, Product Hunt, Standard Cognition, and Anycart. With this round of investment, the company is accelerating hiring, brand onboarding, and is deepening its social, commerce, and payment platform relationships.
“We were early investors in leading social and commerce platforms. There’s no question that the next step is to bridge these two platforms together and we believe Ownit is the company to make this a reality,” said Hans Tung, Managing Partner at GGV Capital. “Payman, Evan, and Joel bring unique expertise in the sector, have a shared vision around commerce at the point of discovery, and have assembled an amazing team to relentlessly pursue that vision.”
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We at Ownit are very encouraged by the conversion performance we’re seeing with our beta customers and how they see our vision helping grow their business in their own words.
“We really like the Ownit product because they’ve created a streamlined way for customers to select the best purchase option for them, without leaving your DTC site. This leads to higher conversions and, in our case, a greater likelihood of repeat purchases.” said Sean Busch, Co-Founder & CEO of Puracy.
“The product Ownit has built has the potential to be a meaningful value add for DTC brands,” said Colin Darretta, CEO & Co-Founder at Innovation Department and its portfolio company Finn. “The results so far with email and SMS are really promising and have us excited to expand our efforts into paid ads with Ownit.”
“As a DTC brand, finding the right external partners that can actually deliver on the results they promise is a dream come true. Ownit’s team is absolutely the real deal, and their Connected Checkout links have performed well beyond our expectations,” said Julian Cheng, Co-Founder & CEO at kitavaMD. “The checkout flow is now a breeze, conversions are up triple digits, and our decreased CAC allows us to offer better deals to our customers. It’s a no-brainer for any DTC multi-channel brand.”
“As a family-owned brand that has been reviving leather since 1968, we constantly strive to provide customers with premium leather care products at reasonable prices. But the increasingly high cost of customer acquisition has made that goal harder,” said Shawn McGowen, CEO at Leather Honey. “We’re thrilled that Ownit is reinventing the checkout experience by removing purchase decision friction and making it easier for customers to one-tap buy. This is a big win for an omni-channel brand like ours.”
