Tracksuit raises $6.8M to build the future of brand marketing
Tracksuit, the brand tracking startup, today announced a $6.8 million seed round led by Blackbird. Icehouse Ventures, Ascential, Shasta Ventures and marketing legend Mark Ritson also participated in the round.
Tracksuit’s affordable and always-on brand tracking has taken the market research model and made it 10x easier to understand and 10x more affordable.
This gives businesses the power to make data-driven decisions around brand marketing at a fraction of the cost of traditional brand tracking.
Lead investor Blackbird, which has backed companies like Canva since 2012, understands the power of investing in brand and is backing Tracksuit with a $3.6 million investment.
“Strong brands are the difference between good companies and great companies – whether they're selling physical products or software. The magic of Tracksuit is giving companies across every industry a common language for measuring, talking about and investing in brand health. We're delighted to partner with the Tracksuit team as they empower marketers across the globe with their product and create a new category of data-driven brand awareness." said Phoebe Harrop, Principal at Blackbird.
After being bootstrapped for the first 20 months, the round marks Tracksuit's first external investment.
Tracksuit was founded in 2021 by Matt Herbert and Connor Archbold in partnership with TRA Labs, the venture studio arm of premier insights agency TRA, and innovation and venture studio Previously Unavailable.
The businesses combined best-in-class market research and brand strategy methodology to create Tracksuit’s product.
“Our vision is for Tracksuit to be used in every strategic growth conversation for the best consumer brands of today and tomorrow,” Archbold says. “We exist to be the common language to measure, understand and communicate the value of brand building.”
The two previously worked together at New Zealand software company Mish Guru, where Herbert was Head of Business Development and Archbold was Chief Operating Officer.
“I’ve loved building Tracksuit with Matt. We challenge each other in the best ways and we share a vision and passion for creating a team and workplace that is both highly effective and highly empathetic. We want to change the world and we hope that one of the ways we'll do that is by showcasing a very human and team-centric way to build a billion-dollar-business from New Zealand,” Archbold says.
Since launching in early 2021, Tracksuit has grown to 20 full-time employees and the business is now tracking more than 1,300 brands across Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.
“When we started Tracksuit 20 months ago, we built a cash-flow positive, bootstrapped business. When the demand for our product skyrocketed, we went into investor conversations with confidence knowing we had the backing of an incredible team and strong metrics,” Matt says.
“The level of immediate demand for Tracksuit is indicative of the shift in consumer businesses, who are focusing less on immediate conversion and more on building long-term growth through highly effective, creative marketing.”
Tracksuit is already the chosen brand tracking solution for more than 180 consumer brands and some of Australia and New Zealand’s best brand leaders, including Allpress Global Brand Lead, Rob Lockyear.
"Allpress has always been a brand led coffee company. Until using Tracksuit we had no idea what impact our brand spend was having on awareness, consideration and preference in NZ, AU and the UK against our key competitors."
Tracksuit will be using this capital to fuel its growth into new markets and hire the best talent across Auckland, Sydney, New York and London.
To find out more about how Tracksuit champions brands and the people building them, visit www.gotracksuit.com.
