Tracksuit, a brand tracking startup headquartered in New Zealand, reportedly closed $5 million in its initial external round as it plans to use the funds to further penetrate the U.S. market.

Apparently, Blackbird headed the investment, which also included other participants namely Shasta Ventures, Ascential, Icehouse Ventures, and brand strategist Mark Ritson.

In order to facilitate growth, Tracksuit hired its first employee in New York City in November, and the city is now home to a 10-person team.

By providing a more accessible and affordable brand insights tool, the company hopes to compete with traditional market research providers.

For the unversed, Tracksuit started in 2021 with an easy dashboard that monitors parameters such as brand awareness, evaluation, preference, and usage against a business's competitive set.

Matt Hebert, co-CEO and co-founder of Tracksuit, addressed it as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering with a fixed cost that is 10 times less expensive than the existing standard.

Tracksuit's software now collects data for over 1,300 brands in New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Australia, and, most recently, the U.S.

The company is going after mid-sized, expanding consumer brands in the food and beverage industry as well as in retail, direct-to-consumer, FMCG (fast-moving consumer goods), and financial services.

According to Herbert, the company gets half of its business from the brand monitoring market that already exists, while the other half comes from a completely different industry that the market research sector has never before catered to. Currently, some important clients include Made by Nacho, Athletic Brewing Company, and Charity: Water.

As per Herbert, the company's product is in high demand, which points to a change in how consumer enterprises handle marketing. He further claimed that they are more focused on developing long-term growth through very effective and innovative marketing than on instant conversion.

Source credit: https://techcrunch.com/2023/02/21/tracksuit-raises-5m-to-make-brand-tracking-more-accessible/