Meet the 24 Most Promising Retail Startups Revolutionizing How Brands Operate and Customers Buy Online & in Stores

The Main Takeaways

• Insider interviewed leading VCs to select the standout startups of 2022.
• The VCs showcased startups from their portfolios without any financial connections, curating an exciting lineup of emerging stars in the retail scene.

Michael Brown, Battery Ventures

Recommended startup: Blue Onion

Relationship: No financial interest

Total startup funding: $8 million

What it does: Blue Onion simplifies financial management for e-commerce brands. Its software reconciles transaction data from across multiple systems, including e-commerce platforms like Shopify and payment processors like Klarna, so that finance-and-accounting teams can have a full and accurate picture of their data in one place.

Why it's promising: Running an online business means integrating a number of different software systems. Modern brands are connecting with customers in a number of different ways, from their online stores to their social-media channels. Blue Onion helps accounting teams automatically match financial records across systems to make sure every transaction is accounted for.

"With the rise of e-commerce, these merchants need a new set of tooling to help run their business across multiple channels, particularly with automating their back-office systems and workflow," Brown said.

Buffy and Draper James currently use Blue Onion's services. Entrée Capital, Green Visor Capital, Halogen Ventures, Vinyl Capital, and Y Combinator are all investors.