Tags Commerce (formerly known as Boost) announced its new name and a $3.5 million raise in a pre-seed round with key investors XRC Labs, Gaingels, Not Boring, Tiny Capital, Vibe Capital, Unpopular Ventures and others.
The Calabasas-based e-commerce company developed or cloud computing which generates instant checkouts, called ‘Tags,’ that turn all online and offline media into checkout points. Each Tag is encoded, like a transactional barcode, and comes in different formats to support all media types. When a buyer activates a Tag, they are sent to a pre-loaded shopping cart with one-click functionality.
“When you typically think about buying and shopping, checkout occurs typically at the end of that experience, and we are disconnecting checkouts from any physical or digital location,” said Daniel Abas, founder and chief executive of Tags. “In doing so, it’s essentially placing the buy button on any format of media. We kind of call ourselves the Wi-Fi of commerce in that anybody can sell anything at any time on any format of media.”
The Tags also come in different formats, such as QR Tags, which can be used for instant purchasing at physical locations, and Tap Tags, designed for consumers to engage with websites via augmented or virtual reality.
According to Abas, brands and retailers benefit from the company’s software because Tags average 64% order conversion rates, as they complete a transaction instantly, rather than sending buyers to a landing page or website. In addition, sellers generate organic traffic and instant conversions without spending on advertisement.
Sellers pay $49 per month to integrate the software onto their websites or through their Shopify account. Tags also takes between 1% to 3% of each transaction.
Tags has worked with customers including the Los Angeles Lakers, Foot Locker and Roc Nation.
“Tags is pioneering a new category in the future of commerce,” said Al Sambar, general partner at XRC Labs. “We welcomed them into our Opportunity Fund earlier this year, and we believe they’re the missing link between advertising spend and monetization for retailers and brands.”