GreyScout, a leading SaaS platform for online brand protection, has announced a €3.5 million seed investment, bringing their total raised to €4.5 million. This round, jointly led by Act VC and Tribal, and participation from Furthr VC, Enterprise Ireland, and HBAN, reaffirms GreyScout’s commitment to safeguarding brands against the digital threats of grey market selling and counterfeiting. As the holiday shopping season approaches, GreyScout’s advanced technology will be crucial in protecting consumers and brand integrity as brand owners prepare for Black Friday and beyond.
Founded in 2020 by John Killian and Chris McCauley, GreyScout is designed to programmatically monitor ecommerce channels, proactively identifying potential intellectual property infringements and grey market activity, earning the trust of industry leaders like Nestle, Bayer, Netgear, Mayborn, Dorel Maxi-Cosi, and many more.
GreyScout’s focus lies in addressing the challenges posed by the surge in suspected bad actors and unverified sellers. Through reseller verification and product authentication, the platform automatically removes infringing product listings from the customers’ view. This not only reduces the manual efforts of e-commerce and legal teams in tracking, but also boasts an impressive 98% success rate on key customers’ enforcement and IP portals submissions. Furthermore, GreyScout’s streamlined onboarding process significantly reduces setup time, transforming what used to take weeks or even months into a mere matter of hours.
Principal at Act VC, Andrew O’Neill, commented: “Companies are struggling to protect their brands online as they try to maintain visibility and verification across an ever-growing number of channels. With its automated and scalable platform, GreyScout is delivering real value for its customers and has an opportunity to be the category leader in grey market protection. “We’ve known the team for some time and look forward to supporting them as they scale”.
John Killian, CEO & Founder of GreyScout, added: “We feel incredibly fortunate and grateful for the support we have received from our extremely talented and driven team, our customers , investors, and industry peers. With this funding, our aim is to expand our product, engineering, and platform teams in direct response to the surging demand for more automated brand protection solutions. Our objective is to empower brand owners with a cost effective, scalable, and user-friendly solution that ensures full control over online activity related to their brand. ”
Grey market trade is a growing concern that often overlaps with the trade of fake goods. According to the OECD, it accounts for 3.3% of global annual trade, equivalent to a staggering €825 billion per year. Grey market activity continues to thrive due to substantial price differentials for high end, sought-after items and as well as everyday essentials. Furthermore, the rapid growth of the e-commerce sector, valued at approximately $6.3 trillion, has been further accelerated by the widespread adoption of online shopping and the impact of COVID-19. This inadvertently fuelled the expansion of the grey market selling as consumers increasingly turned to online retail.
This investment not only marks a significant milestone for the company but also underscores GreyScout’s pivotal role in helping brands protect their reputation and revenue in an increasingly digital and competitive landscape.
