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Melbourne-based Lexer, a consumer data platform for brands and retailers, has closed a $33.5 million Series B raise to support the company's global expansion plans.
The cash injection led by Blackbird Ventures and King River Capital brings the company's total funding to $43 million.
Co-founded by Chris Brewer (pictured left), Aaron Wallis (pictured centre) and Dave Whittle (pictured right) 10 years ago, Lexer has been helping brands and retailers collect and enrich fragmented data sources into a single customer view to understand and engage with their customers in personalised ways.
The raise will give Lexer a springboard to push overseas, and help improve its platform to enable clients like Quicksilver, Zimmerman, Billabong, Optus and The Iconic better understand their customers.
"We exist to help brands orient their business around the customer, with our software using data to deliver human experiences," CEO of Lexer Dave Whittle said.
"Brands are awash with data these days, but it's siloed, and they have no way of sorting, managing, gleaning insights and taking action from it.
"Using Lexer, a business can provide their customers the personalised experience they deserve. We call this genuine engagement."
Lexer is aiming to hire a person per week for the next year, doubling its headcount across Australia, the United States and Southeast Asia.
Significant investment in the platform will cement Lexer's position as an emerging winner in the Customer Data Platform (CDP) sector.
Blackbird's Rick Baker, who will join Lexer's board, described the platform's solutions as the "holy grail" for retailers.
"We love investing in companies that are defining a new world or shaping a new category, rather than just being a shinier version of a pre-existing business," Baker said.
"Lexer is solving the holy grail of all business problems for retailers: how to get a perfect view of their customer and build truly customer centric experiences.
"The team is looking to redefine customer engagement just as Canva has redefined content creation."
With the shift to e-commerce rapidly expanding, Whittle said Lexer would support companies to take advantage of the trend.
"Most retailers don't have the time or resources to handle the massive amounts of data that have been created as part of the huge COVID-driven channel shift," said Whittle.
"Retail behemoths like Amazon have reset customer expectations by leveraging their large data sets to better target them, putting smaller retailers at an even bigger disadvantage.
"We're now democratising this intelligence and giving any sized brand accessible access to beautifully simple enterprise-grade software to help them better understand and engage their customers, enabling them to not only survive but thrive."
"Lexer has a bright future across the global retail sector," added King River Capital partner Zebediah Rice.
"Many brands will benefit from its products as they continue adapting to rapidly changing consumer behaviours.
"We are delighted to be investing in the company as it looks to international expansion."
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