Drop, the social commerce shopping app that helps brands slide into consumers' DMs, has raised $5.5 million in a round of seed funding.

WHO: Drop was launched in January 2022 by a trio of co-founders from the digital marketing and agency world inspired by social shopping in China and seeing an opportunity with brands' perpetual struggle with changing algorithms. Drop developed direct messaging as a sales channel, enabling customers to communicate instantaneously with a brand without leaving the social media ecosystem or being led to an external website.

WHY: The funding is going toward staffing up on the engineering side to develop the platform as it launches more features and two brand partnerships.

IN THEIR OWN WORDS: "What the vast majority of brands are competing against is conversion optimization," co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Benjamin Benichou told WWD. "We don't want to force followers to leave a social media application to visit a website, we want to bring the product directly to them."

DETAILS:

• Drop raised $5.5 million in seed funding from Vienna-based Speedinvest, Motier Ventures, the investment office from the owners of the Galeries Lafayette Group, Paris-based Kima Ventures, and London's Exponent Capital. Independent investors including WeTransfer founder Nalden and Feed's founder Anthony Bourbon participated in the round.