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§ Private Profile · New York City, NY, USA
Headless ecommerce platform providing sophisticated data and commerce-as-a-service for DTC brands, without requiring engineering teams.
Based in New York City, Chord operates a data-forward headless ecommerce platform that provides commerce-as-a-service infrastructure to independent direct-to-consumer brands. The platform-as-a-service model delivers integrated content management, customer data platforms, and order management tools without requiring client companies to build or maintain their own internal engineering teams. To accelerate its technological development, the enterprise acquired an external data startup and subsequently shifted its primary focus toward its proprietary commerce data platform. The organization has raised $35 million in total funding, including an $18 million Series A round, and reached approximately $3 million in annual recurring revenue by mid-2023. Backed by lead investor Eclipse Ventures, the company serves a growing portfolio of consumer brands and corporate clients that includes Sonos, Hiki, and State of Menopause. Chord was officially founded in 2021 by former Glossier executives Bryan Mahoney and Henry Davis.
Chord has raised $44.6M across 5 funding rounds.
Chord has raised $44.6M in total across 5 funding rounds.
Chord has raised $44.6M in total across 5 funding rounds.
Chord's investors include M13, Eclipse Ventures, Liquid 2 Ventures, Ethan Austin, Spencer Slaine, Will Gaybrick, Eclipse, Sonae IM, Jake Kassan, 1517 Fund, Alumni Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners.
Chord has raised $44.6M across 5 funding rounds. Most recently, it raised $5.5M Other Equity in March 2025.
| Date | Round | Lead Investors | Other Investors | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mar 27, 2025 | $5.5M Venture Round | M13 | — | Announced |
| Mar 1, 2025 | $6M Series U | — | Eclipse Ventures, Liquid 2 Ventures, M13, Ethan Austin, Spencer Slaine, Will Gaybrick | Announced |
| Jan 1, 2023 | $15M Series A | Eclipse, Liquid 2 Ventures, Sonae IM | Jake Kassan | Announced |
| Mar 1, 2021 | $18M Series A | Eclipse Ventures | 1517 Fund, Alumni Ventures, Bessemer Venture Partners, Camber Creek, Cedar Capital Group, Derive Ventures, FJ Labs, Liquid 2 Ventures, The Finger Group, Oded Hermoni, Salil Pitroda | Announced |
| Jun 1, 2019 | $150K Seed | — | — | Announced |
Chord is a New York-based e-commerce data platform that unifies commerce data from disparate sources into a single, AI-ready schema, enabling brands to gain real-time insights, predictive analytics, and automated marketing activation.[1][2][4] It serves direct-to-consumer (DTC) and e-commerce brands like Sonos, Blue Bottle Coffee, and Caraway, solving the problem of fragmented data across tools by providing a commerce-built context engine and AI copilot that delivers accurate, actionable intelligence without manual ETL processes or guesswork.[1][2][3][4] With nearly $3 million in ARR achieved in just over a year on its data product pivot, Chord demonstrates strong growth momentum, backed by $40 million in total funding including a recent $5.5 million round led by M13.[2][6]
Chord was founded in 2020 by Bryan Mahoney and Henry Davis, both former executives at Glossier, who recognized the need for sophisticated commerce infrastructure that startups could access without large engineering teams.[1][2][3][6] Initially launched as Arfa—a headless commerce platform—they raised $18 million in Series A funding in 2021 from investors like Imaginary Ventures, Foundation Capital, and White Star Capital, followed by a $15 million Series A extension in early 2023 co-led by Bright Pixel Capital.[3] The pivot came mid-2023 when the headless market proved too niche for venture-scale growth; leveraging their existing data capabilities, they rebranded to Chord Commerce, secured Sonos as an early customer, and scaled to nearly $3 million ARR despite burning through prior funds.[2] This evolution was sparked by customer feedback on data ROI, humanizing Chord's journey from infrastructure play to AI-driven data leader.[2]
Chord rides the AI-for-commerce wave, capitalizing on the explosion of generative AI tools that demand clean, contextual data to avoid hallucinations—positioning it as the "missing link" between fragmented e-commerce stacks (Shopify, Klaviyo, etc.) and actionable intelligence.[2][4] Timing is ideal amid 2023-2025's shift from hype-driven AI to enterprise-grade applications, where DTC brands face data silos amid rising customer expectations for personalization and real-time marketing.[1][2][3] Market forces like composable commerce and API proliferation favor Chord, as brands consolidate vendors to cut costs; it influences the ecosystem by enabling faster decision-making, much like how CDPs like Segment evolved but tailored specifically for commerce LTV and attribution.[1][4]
Chord is poised to dominate as the go-to AI context layer for e-commerce, expanding its $5.5 million-funded AI orchestration to larger enterprises and deeper integrations amid maturing headless trends.[1][2] Rising demands for predictive commerce—fueled by economic pressures on DTC margins—will shape its path, potentially hitting $10M+ ARR via network effects from early wins like Sonos.[2][3] Its influence may evolve into a full-stack consolidator, pressuring incumbents and empowering brands to "act on truth, not guesses," tying back to its origins in solving Glossier-scale data chaos for the next generation of commerce leaders.[4]