CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A member of boy band NSYNC is saying “Hi Hi Hi” to an online Charlotte online grocery tech startup as one of its early investors.
Lance Bass backed the retail tech company Grocery Shopii, a grocery delivery platform, on the new business reality show “Unicorn Hunters,” which is available on-demand at UnicornHunters.com and other online channels.
Bass is one of the panelists on the show, which gives viewers access to invest in pre-IPO opportunities and spotlights companies that it says have the potential to reach a billion-dollar valuation.
“This is something I would definitely use,” Bass said on the show, released Wednesday. “This fits my lifestyle.”
Among the other investors is fellow panelist and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. The amount they are willing to invest is unclear.
Grocery Shopii co-founder and CEO Katie Hotze was seeking investments from the show’s seven-person panel, called Circle of Money, as well as thousands of global investors watching.
“I built this company from the ground up out of sketches and a dollar store notebook,” Hotze said on the show. “Their investment would allow us to grow very, very quickly.”
Hotze said she wants to raise up to $15 million on a $40 million prefunding valuation.
Grocery Shopii (pronounced shop-ee) offers meal planning technology available on a grocer’s website that provides “Pinterest-worthy” recipe recommendations, Hotze said. The recipe ingredients go directly in the online shopping cart. Reasor’s, based in Oklahoma, is using Grocery Shopii at its 17 stores, according to the tech company
The platform uses machine learning for a personalized experience for each shopper, Hotze said. It also can customize orders for dietary restrictions like gluten-free.
Hotze told the investors that people spend 53 hours a year wandering grocery aisles. Grocery Shopii, she said, saves time with online orders completed in five minutes or less.
Hotze was a digital marketing executive before launching Grocery Shopii two years ago. The company, based in Davidson, has 12 employees, Hotze said.
The goal is to have 500 stores on the platform next year with revenue at $1.5 million, and more than 2,000 stores by 2023 with revenue to exceed $10 million, according to the bio shared on “Unicorn Hunters” website.
“I’m selling to the neighborhood grocery stores who don’t have the means to build it themselves,” Hotze told investors. She said that represents about 500 companies.
The company has raised $869,000 with $400,000 remaining, she told the investors. Grocery Shopii charges $75 per store per month, with 36-month contracts.
Viewers also can invest in Grocery Shopii at UnicornHunters.com.
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