Unlocking Hidden Revenue
Today's featured startup uses AI to track shopper intent and convert missed opportunities into real profits
Project Overview
Markopolo has built an AI platform that helps online retailers convert 30–40% more visitors by identifying shoppers’ real buying intent and acting on it instantly. For mobile users, that translates into a 67% increase in conversion rates. Abandoned carts convert into completed purchases eight times more often than the industry average — enabling merchants to recover up to 35% of lost revenue. To date, Markopolo has helped its clients regain more than $54 million.
To achieve this, Markopolo identifies up to 20% of anonymous visitors by matching them with existing customers or enriching their profiles to email or phone numbers. It tracks 384 behavioral signals — from comparing products to hesitating before checkout — to understand what the shopper intended to buy and why they didn’t complete the purchase. If a visit does not end in a transaction, Markopolo follows up through email, SMS, WhatsApp, or even phone calls with tailored prompts designed to resolve hesitation and drive the purchase.
More than 800 online stores rely on Markopolo, and a new version of the platform recently launched on Product Hunt. The startup has raised $4 million so far, including $2 million this May.
What’s the Gist?
The core problem is universal: shoppers rarely buy on the first attempt. They browse, compare, hesitate — and 96–99% of them leave without converting. Traditional ecommerce funnels aren’t built for this reality.
What truly matters is catching the shopper at the moment when intent “clicks.” Not blasting them with generic messages, but resolving the exact doubt that stopped the purchase in the first place.
This is where next-generation “intent engines” come in. Instead of personalization by name or past category, they profile behavior in context:
“Someone who compares prices during lunch, then reads reviews on their phone after work before buying.”
For that person, the AI automatically sends evening reviews of the exact items they browsed earlier — with direct purchase links. Someone else, with different behavior, gets a completely different message at a different moment.
Other startups are exploring similar territory:
Eden (YC) uses AI to segment shoppers by the reason they hesitated, then auto-generates emails to resolve those doubts.
Made With Intent predicts initial intent from on-site behavior to deliver highly relevant nudge campaigns.
Session AI (formerly ZineOne) has raised $43M to analyze anonymous visitor intent in real time.
But today’s featured team is taking a bolder approach. Their goal is to make AI agents an invisible companion throughout every ecommerce journey — from the first session to post-visit communication. In the next five years, they believe “anonymous visitors” will effectively disappear, replaced by real-time understanding of behaviors, patterns, and intent.
The ambition is huge: recover $100B in lost ecommerce revenue by 2030 and scale into a multibillion-dollar company within two years.
Key Takeaways
Even a startup far from Silicon Valley can aim for a multibillion-dollar outcome — if it hits the right problem with the right technology at the right moment. And investors respond to that logic. They aren’t betting on a specific founder or geography; they’re betting on the theme. When a topic proves real and inevitable, smart funds place multiple parallel bets, just like YC does when it backs a dozen teams in the same space.
The theme here is clear: AI agents that genuinely understand shopper intent will soon become a standard layer in ecommerce. They’ll analyze behavior, anticipate hesitation, and make timely offers that are almost impossible to ignore. It’s not a question of if this becomes mainstream — only who will survive long enough to lead the wave.
The practical takeaway is simple: imagine the version of ecommerce where every customer journey is supported by an AI agent… then build whatever is missing to make that future happen. And if you’re looking for a direction to start — this category is one of the safest bets.e real.
Company Info
Markopolo
Website: markopolo.ai
Total Funding: $4M across 6 rounds