Carrot AI Raises $5.5M for Automated Cart Categorization

Addressing Shopping Cart Abandonment with Carrot

Despite the increasing prevalence of online shopping, a significant portion of items added to carts are never purchased. According to the Baymard Institute, as reported by Shopify, approximately 70% of desktop shopping carts are abandoned. This rate is even higher when considering mobile and tablet users.

Introducing Carrot: A Cart Saving Solution

Carrot, a new venture spearheaded by Bobby Ghoshal and Ramin Bozorgzadeh, aims to reduce the number of abandoned shopping carts. The platform offers a solution designed to streamline the online shopping experience.

How Carrot Functions

Carrot operates as a plug-in that automatically saves items placed in your shopping cart and organizes them into categories. It functions seamlessly without requiring any extra clicks or actions from the user.

Recent Funding

The company has recently secured $5.5 million in seed funding. Investors include Kindred Ventures, M13, Abstract, Designer Fund, Combine, Paris Hilton, Scott Belsky, Riverpark, and NextView.

The Core Technology

Carrot’s key innovation lies in its ability to detect and record items added to a cart, irrespective of the retailer. The technology captures the “add to cart” action and stores relevant details, such as price and the source retailer.

Organization and Price Tracking

The platform automatically categorizes saved carts by retailer. Users also have the flexibility to create custom folders for specific shopping needs. For instance, a user shopping for lamps across multiple stores can create a dedicated folder to easily compare options and prices within Carrot.

Furthermore, the product monitors price fluctuations for items saved in carts, alerting users to potential sales.

Wish List and Registry Features

Carrot allows users to generate registries to share with friends and family. While currently a basic feature, the team is actively developing functionality to track purchased items within the registry, preventing duplicate gifts.

The Team Behind Carrot

Bobby Ghoshal brings significant entrepreneurial experience, having co-founded Candid, a company that raised over $150 million, and previously served as Head of Design and Growth at WeWork.

Ramin Bozorgzadeh also has a strong background, as a founding engineer at WeWork, Head of Engineering at WeWork Labs, and an early engineer at Etsy.

Mobile Accessibility

Currently, Carrot is primarily available on desktop. However, the company has implemented a workaround for mobile shoppers. Users can text items to a designated number provided by Carrot, mirroring the common practice of texting themselves reminders of desired purchases.

Revenue Model

Carrot currently generates revenue through an affiliate marketing model, earning commissions from retailers for completed purchases originating from the platform.

Future Plans

Looking ahead, Carrot intends to introduce a SaaS model, offering brands access to features like competitive bidding and audience profiling for a monthly fee.

The team is also exploring a unified checkout option across multiple retailers, which would generate revenue through interchange fees. However, the immediate focus remains on expanding the user base rather than maximizing revenue.

Challenges and Considerations

Ghoshal identifies scaling the platform and encouraging user advocacy as key challenges. He emphasizes the importance of users sharing their positive experiences with Carrot.

He also acknowledges potential challenges related to Google’s platform. While a feature on Google would be beneficial, there is a risk that Google might develop a competing product.