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Indianapolis-based venture studio High Alpha was the lead investor in a $8.9 million funding round for Nostra AI, a New York City-based retail technology startup with an Indiana connection.
Other participants in the round included Salt Lake City-based Signal Peak Ventures, San Francisco-based Sugar Capital, Los Angeles-based Crosscut Ventures and New York City-based Good Friends, along with industry experts and angel investors such as Cloudflare CEO and Co-Founder Matthew Prince.
The round closed April 15 but was not publicly announced until this week.
In connection with the investment, High Alpha Co-Founder and Partner Kristian Andersen has joined Nostra’s board of directors.
Nostra’s founder and CEO is Arthur Root, who launched Nostra in 2020 when he was a student at Indiana University. Root grew up in San Francisco and now lives in New York City.
Andersen told IBJ that he met Root through Jared Golden, another entrepreneur and an IU alum. Andersen had previously invested in Golden when Andersen was running the Indianapolis-based seed fund Gravity Ventures.
Nostra’s software helps consumer brands speed up their websites, giving online shoppers a better experience and making it less likely that they will abandon their online shopping carts.
“When it comes to e-commerce, it’s no secret that website speed, especially on mobile devices, has a direct impact on conversion rates and revenue,” Root said in a prepared statement.
Root said Nostra reduces the time it takes for websites to load, and Nostra customers have seen revenue increases of more than 10% as a result.
Nostra said more than 450 million website visits run through its platform each month. Its customers include established companies such as clothing retailers Forever 21 and O’Neill, as well as emerging online brands such as cosmetics brand Jones Road, apparel brand Brunt Workwear, nail and lash brand Glamnetic, and linens and apparel brand Cozy Earth, among others.
“Nostra AI has demonstrated it can deliver incredible results and clear value for e-commerce brands,” Andersen said in a prepared statement. “Consumers continue to demand lightning-fast online experiences, and every millisecond has an impact on the customer experience, as well as merchant revenue. We believe Nostra is positioned to lead the website speed optimization market and we’re excited to support Arthur and the Nostra AI team.”
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