Venture funding secured for Mercari

Mercari Technologies Inc. of Fayetteville got $20 million in venture capital funding Sept. 6 from a group of investors led by Baltimore-based ABS Ventures, the venture capital arm of Duetche Bank Alex Brown, and North Bridge Venture Parnters of Waltham, Ma.

The funding for the optimization firm, formerly known as BAV Software, will be used to take Mercari’s newest software products to mass market.

Diamond State Ventures of Little Rock, Southeast Interactive Technology Funds of Research Triangle Park, N.C., North Bridge and several private investors including David Peterschmidt, who is president and CEO of Inktomi Inc., increased their initial investments in the firm for this round of funding.

Randy Laney — Mercari’s chairman, CEO and president — said the products have already been built and consumer tested. The software is designed to be a solution tool for “collaborative merchandise optimization,” or more simply, to manage the “show and flow” of merchandise.

Potential customers include Wal-Mart Stores Inc., KMart Inc., grocery store chains and other special merchandise stores and their vendors.

The new software includes:

• InitiaLink — Software that enables merchandise trading partners, vendors, manufacturers and retailers to share merchandise planning and supply chain management via the Internet. It requires a browser and Internet access for use.

Major grocery vendor Pilsbury Co. is already using the product.

• NeoCtex for NetMarkets — An Internet marketplace designed to be a worldwide retail exchange. Manufacturers can post product information and samples, and retailers may log in and test and order the products.

“NeoCtex is an online trading platform,” Laney said. “A retailer could go on there and say, ‘OK, I want 20 cases of fans from company ‘X’ for next year’s spring assortment.’ Then they could also get the logistics down, the packaging designed and plan the shelf layout.

“Basically, [Mercari] wants to be the engine that would lie inside the Internet market and allow manufacturers and retailers to work out their supply chain needs. This software can make that happen.”

Mercari recently partnered with Metastream to add 3D visualization capabilities to InitiaLink and its entire line of merchandise technology applications. Mercari also struck an alliance with publicly traded The viaLink Co. to integrate information on consumers and consumer packaged goods with its collaborative software.