Arlene

360-Degree Online Showrooms

Company Information

Website:

https://arlene.io/

Sector:

Technology Software

Location:

Erie, PA

Arlene helps brands create immersive technology experiences.

Already used by Disney and Coach, this venture-backed company enables brands to create 360-degree online showrooms, virtual “try-ons” for products, and social Augmented and Virtual Reality experiences for customers.

Apple, Facebook, Microsoft, Google — all these tech giants are betting big on immersive technology. This involves using Augmented and Virtual Reality (AR/VR), and 360-degree technologies to create memorable brand experiences and sales opportunities.

Have you ever "designed" a new car through a website and gotten a 360-degree view? Or shopped online for glasses and virtually “tried on” each set of frames? If so, you’ve experienced immersive technology. It’s how 100 million customers in the U.S. prefer to shop. And it’s already a $15 billion market.

These types of experiences are highly engaging. The problem is they’re expensive and time-consuming to create. And it’s hard to track how effective they are at actually bringing in sales and retaining customers.

Until recently, immersive experiences were limited to enterprise-level brands with big budgets. But Arlene was created to help brands of all sizes create immersive content.

It provides a full suite of tools that enables brands to create experiences such as virtual showrooms and tours, 3D product previews, and social AR engagements — with little to no coding skills required.

As customers take part in these experiences, Arlene measures engagement rates and enables brands to determine whether immersive technology is an effective tool for their business.

With Arlene, a furniture maker can let customers view pieces in a virtual showroom, while a company selling household goods can let users digitally “place” products like a plant or mirror in their home.

Arlene charges a monthly subscription for its software. The young company is already doing $100k + in annual recurring revenue, and its quarterly revenue is increasing by over 20%.

After proving demand for its platform, Arlene is now partnering with agencies that can quickly help it scale. In February 2021, Arlene launched a marketing campaign that led to a customer pipeline that includes Target, Macy’s, and Sotheby’s.

To date, Arlene has raised $375,000 from investors including MathCapital and Same Page Capital, as well as angel investors from Goldman Sachs, Adobe, and Snapchat. Now it’s seeking additional funds to improve its software and integrate live-streaming video into its offerings.

Team Background

Hermes Frangoudis - Co-Founder & CTO

Hermes has a background in Augmented Reality (AR), having created more than 100 “experiences” for brands including Coca-Cola, Marvel, and Porsche. He’s also spent 15 years as a full-stack software developer.

Prior to starting Arlene, he worked at Agora, a computer software company. Before that, he was an engineer with Blippar, a computer software company specializing in AR.

Hermes earned a Bachelor’s degree in Design from Penn State University.

Colin Jacobsen - Co-Founder & CEO

Colin has spent more than a decade in the advertising technology market.

He began his career with Ondot Systems, a financial services company, working as a product and marketing analyst. From there, he was an associate business analyst with Advertising.com.

He then joined MoPub, a company providing monetization solutions for mobile app publishers, and worked as an account manager until the company was acquired by Twitter for $350 million. He then worked at Twitter for four years.

More recently, Colin co-owned Positrips, a tourism review platform. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Bob Reisenweber - Co-Founder & COO

Bob has eight years of experience investing in and working at startups. His focus is on operations.

He began his career as an M&A investment banker with UBS, an investment bank. From there, he co-founded Betiply, a daily fantasy sports betting platform. He then became an advisor with Acoustic Data, a technology company focused on wireless monitoring solutions.

More recently, Bob was a principal at GITP, a private equity group. He earned a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania.

Co-Investors

Same Page Capital

A VC fund investing in early-stage technology companies.

MathCapital

An early-stage VC firm investing in marketing and advertising startups.

Raising
$500K
Committed
$84.788K (17%)
Current Valuation
$6 million Cap / 20% Discount
Min. Investment
$150
Deal Type
Title III
(For all investors)
Offering Type
SAFE
Finance History
Notable Investors
  • Same Page Capital
  • MathCapital
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