Delivering exceptional customer experiences necessitates gathering extensive data from numerous sources, and the challenge of unifying this fragmented information has become a key focus for organizations of all sizes, including prominent companies like Salesforce, Adobe, Segment, and Klaviyo. Today, Grouparoo, a new venture founded by three experienced professionals, emerges as the latest player with an open source framework specifically designed to simplify customer data access and utilization for developers.

The company has announced a $3 million seed funding round, spearheaded by Eniac Ventures and Fuel Capital, with additional investment from Hack VC, Liquid2, SCM Advisors, and a group of undisclosed angel investors.

Grouparoo’s CEO and co-founder, Brian Leonard, explains that the company’s open source customer data framework stems from his personal experiences and the difficulties he encountered while integrating customer data into various tools during his time as the technical founder at TaskRabbit, starting in 2008.

“We provide an open source data framework that empowers businesses to seamlessly synchronize their customer data from their database or data warehouse to all the necessary SaaS applications. Once installed, the framework learns about your customers, identifying the key attributes within their profiles. It then enables you to categorize them into meaningful groups,” Leonard clarified.

An example of this could involve identifying high-income individuals located in San Francisco, along with their corresponding names and addresses. Grouparoo can then extract this data and transmit it to a marketing platform such as Marketo or Zendesk, allowing these tools to recognize and prioritize your most valuable customers.

Currently, the company consists solely of the three founders: Leonard, CTO Evan Tahler, and COO Andy Jih. While Leonard is not yet prepared to specify the exact number of hires anticipated within the next year, he anticipates the team will grow to fewer than 10 individuals. Even at this early stage, the co-founders are actively prioritizing the development of a diverse and inclusive company culture, building upon the experiences Leonard gained at TaskRabbit.

“Drawing on our experiences at TaskRabbit and embarking on this new venture, it’s crucial for all three of us to prioritize building a diverse company from the outset, particularly given our commitment to open source development. We are dedicated to transparency regarding our culture and core values,” he stated.

The connection to TaskRabbit extends to the investment phase, as Fuel GP Leah Solivan also co-founded TaskRabbit. “Grouparoo addresses a significant and pressing challenge that companies face as they expand—ensuring that every team member has access to the data required to generate revenue, attract customers, and enhance real-time decision-making. Brian, Andy, and Evan have created a sophisticated solution to a problem we encountered directly at TaskRabbit,” she commented.

The company is currently adopting an open source strategy to foster a community around the tool. While presently pre-revenue, the intention is to develop a commercial offering based on the open source foundation. They are exploring options such as an open core license, which would allow them to add premium features, provide support, or offer the tool as a managed service. Leonard indicates that these plans will be finalized in 2021.