Customer data platform, Lexer has raised $33.5 million in Series B funding, bringing its total funding to $43 million, to rapidly grow its team and to accelerate product development over the next 12 months.

Lexer was founded 10 years ago by Aaron Wallis with co-founder, Chris Brewer and Dave Whittle. The platform helps brands and retailers collect and enrich fragmented data sources into a single customer view to better understand, and personalise engagement with, customers. Existing clients include Quicksilver, Zimmermann, Billabong, Optus and The Iconic.

The Series B funding round was led by Blackbird Ventures and King River Capital with Series A investor, January Capital also participating.

Lexer CEO, Dave Whittle said the platform exists to help brands orient their business around the customer using data to deliver human experiences.

“Brands are awash with data these days, but it’s siloed, and they have no way of sorting, managing, gleaning insights, and taking action from it. Using Lexer, a business can provide their customers the personalised experience they deserve,” he said.

“A strong retail industry is integral to rebuilding the global economy, so we’ve got to ensure that businesses can make better decisions and give them the tools that they need to succeed.”

As a result of the shift in spending behaviour and digital-first shopping preferences, retailers have seen an explosion of data. Traditionally, retailers have had to plug in multiple data and analytics software to understand the myriad data, resulting in bigger expenses and the need for more technical data scientists. Lexer alleviates this. 

“Most retailers don’t have the time or resources to handle the massive amounts of data that have been created as part of the huge COVID-driven channel shift. Retail behemoths like Amazon have reset customer expectations by leveraging their large data sets to better target them, putting smaller retailers at an even bigger disadvantage,” Whittle said. 

“We’re now democratising this intelligence and giving any sized brand accessible access to simple enterprise-grade software to help them better understand and engage their customers, enabling them to not only survive but thrive.”  Lexer aims to hire a person per week for the next year, doubling its headcount across Australia, the United States, and Southeast Asia. Significant investment in the platform will cement Lexer’s position as an emerging winner in the Customer Data Platform (CDP) sector.