Dive Brief:
- To help resolve retail’s inventory management problems, Ghost, a members-only B2B marketplace for excess inventory, has raised $30 million in Series B funding, the company announced Monday.
- Cathay Innovation led the funding round, with participation from existing investors Union Square Ventures, Equal Ventures and Eniac Ventures. Along with a $20 million Series A funding round in July 2022, the Series B funding brings the total the company has raised to $68 million.
- The funding will go toward hiring product, engineering and design staffers and updating the platform to meet increasing demand, per the press release. The company said it has more than 1,000 brands and retail members on its platform spanning categories like clothing, shoes, beauty and home goods.
Dive Insight:
Ghost is aiming to address the costly, complicated challenge of surplus inventory in retail. The company’s platform is a place for retailers and brands to buy, sell, price and ship excess goods.
Dee Murthy, co-CEO of Ghost, said in a statement that the company is working to reach brands in the U.S., Europe and Asia.
“We are leveraging data science and technology to solve a problem that has previously been addressed with phone calls and fax machines,” Josh Kaplan, co-CEO of Ghost, said in a statement. “Our alpha is the ability to predict everything from market pricing to sell-through, which is extremely powerful information for our customers.”
While excess inventory has been a headache for some retailers, it has also created an opportunity for off-price retailers seeking those unwanted products. Following the inventory shortages that plagued retailers at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, retailers have since had to adjust their inventories to avoid surpluses.
Kohl’s, for example, said earlier this year that it aims to shrink its inventory plan after it purchased far too much in 2022. And in its Q2 earnings report Wednesday the retailer said inventory was down 14% year over year.
