Arizona startup funding continues to increase, allowing businesses to grow. Phoenix-based Hammoq and Mesa-based Better Agency recently announced seed round raises.
Hammoq raises $3 million
Hammoq announced a $3 million seed round late last month. The startup known as “the Shopify for e-commerce businesses” uses its platform to automate time-consuming tasks, including auto-listing products, cross-listing products on multiple platforms, shipping and managing inventory.
Hammoq CEO and co-founder Sid Lunawat said, through previous experience, the company knows the way to make money in the resale market is to get the products online quickly.
“The time and effort spent listing and managing products, tracking down inventory, and managing P&L eats into throughput — and profits — substantially,” Lunawat said in a statement. “We have built Hammoq to automate those repetitive and time-consuming processes, ease the burden on eCommerce resellers, and ultimately help them sell more products.”
The round was led by Origin Ventures, a VC firm that previously invested in GrubHub and Cameo, among other software and marketplace companies. Prashant Shukla of Origin Ventures will join Hammoq’s board.
The company said the funding will be used to expand its team and continue iterating its product offerings.
Better Agency raises $2.1 million
Better Agency, the startup creating software for the insurance industry, raised $2.1 million in seed capital, led by PHX Venture Partners.
The startup’s software gives independent insurance agents a single platform to manage their agency and automate their sales process.
Better Agency CEO and co-founder Will Shaw said his company saw an increase in business during the pandemic, as agents worked remotely and reconsidered their existing software platforms.
The company, which launched in 2019, was bootstrapped until this point, and the founding team never planned to raise outside capital. This seed round will be used to invest in the company’s product growth and to expand the team locally.
Shaw told the Phoenix Business Journal that he estimates that Better Agency will double its current 16-person team by next summer.