After running an online clothing website for four years, Gavin Smith and Lee Smith became frustrated with existing e-commerce platform options. So, as entrepreneurs, the pair decided to create a better solution.
Their answer is Ottemo, a new Seattle startup that has developed an all-in-one e-commerce platform for small and medium-sized retailers.
The company, which just raised $650,000 of a larger funding round, offers customers cloud-based scalable software that hosts an online storefront, provides analytics, and manages inventory, among other features.
After running Rich Kids Brand for the past few years, Gavin Smith and Lee Smith (not related) originally planned to build another e-commerce apparel company that utilized improved back-end technology. But that’s when Ottemo’s third co-founder, former Julep executive James Vastbinder, stepped in and recommended that the startup instead build an e-commerce platform that could be licensed out to other companies.
“We did more background research and realized it was a much larger opportunity than building a regular e-commerce company that sold product,” said CEO Gavin Smith.
The company then set out to build a new mobile-first platform that used technologies like Golang and Angular JS to help improve speed and stability. Beyond the basic e-commerce tools, Ottemo also included additional features like real-time analytics and built-in SEO.
“What happens right now is that these e-commerce companies have to cobble all sorts of vendors together to run an e-commerce business effectively,” Smith said. “We want to be the one-stop solution.”
The founders tested the solution with Rich Kids Brand and relaunched that website two months ago. They also just inked their first deal with KariGran, an online makeup retailer.
“The platform functionality has been amazing and was much better than what we used previously,” Smith noted.
Smith said that Ottemo differentiates itself from competitors by offering a solution that is scalable and can adapt to new technologies without much time or effort. He also noted that the software is comparable to what larger companies are using.
“We wanted to build a platform that has all the enterprise feature sets, but cost-effective enough so small and medium guys can have access to the same features and compete with larger corporations,” Smith said.
Ottemo, which employs five, plans to raise an additional $750,000 in the coming months.
