Startup Marklo, founded by Jessica Herrin in 2025, has raised $5 million in seed funding led by Forerunner, with participation from Freestyle Capital and angel investors, including former Klaviyo executives and current Shopify executives. The company is developing an AI-powered platform to help consumer brands plan marketing campaigns based on sales, inventory, and previous campaign data.
The round comes as Marklo prepares to open its platform for public use ahead of the holiday shopping season. The company will use the funding to hire engineers, develop the product, and expand customer support. The company has not generated revenue yet, but says that more than 100 brands are using its software in a pilot phase, including Away, Clare V., Monica + Andy, Maya Brenner, and Latico Leathers.
From Data Aggregation to Campaign Recommendations
Marklo connects data from Shopify and services such as Klaviyo, Attentive, Meta, and Google, then organizes previous launches, promotions, and sales in a unified calendar. This allows marketing teams to compare the impact of a campaign with other factors, such as the launch of a new product or the spread of a social media post, instead of analyzing each service in isolation.
The platform then suggests products that could be promoted, taking into account available inventory, campaign timing, competitor offers, and social media trends. It can also prepare a draft campaign plan, create related tasks, draft marketing materials, and send proposals and reports through Slack or email.
The company says that humans review and approve the proposals before they are implemented, and also confirms that it does not use customer data to train AI models. Marklo plans to offer a monthly subscription model with additional usage-based fees, while it currently allows brands to install and try the platform for free.
What Changes in Practice?
Marklo is not focused solely on producing marketing copy; rather, it is trying to address an earlier step: determining which product should be promoted and why. The idea is based on bringing together data that is usually distributed across e-commerce, advertising, email, and social media platforms, then connecting it with inventory and past results before making a recommendation.
The company gave an example of identifying a trending color on social media, matching it with a bag available at one retailer that had not been promoted recently, and then suggesting a post based on a previously successful campaign. Latico Leathers also said it used the platform to plan a full month of marketing in one day, after the process had previously taken most of a week through meetings, spreadsheets, and five different tools.
The Founder’s Experience and Market Competition
Herrin founded Stella & Dot, which sold more than $2 billion worth of products through a network of independent sellers. After its business declined during the COVID-19 pandemic, she redirected her experience toward the problem of managing marketing for brands that sell online.
Kirsten Green, founder and managing partner at Forerunner Ventures, believes that Herrin’s experience gives her firsthand knowledge of the challenges brands face at their various stages. Marklo is entering a market where investment in AI for sales, marketing, and customer relationship management is increasing; startups in these fields raised $7.5 billion across 830 rounds globally through mid-September, according to the data cited in the source. However, the challenge remains turning data into actionable recommendations, rather than merely collecting it or generating marketing content.
Marklo’s scalability, the accuracy of its recommendations, and its actual use of inventory and brand identity will remain factors requiring testing as its customer base expands. The company has also not yet begun generating revenue, making the planned subscription model and brands’ retention of the platform open questions in the next phase.