Novi Connect

Novi Connect was founded in 2020 by Kimberly Shenk (CEO) and Yashi Shrestha (Head of Chemistry & Sustainability) with a thesis that 'product data is broken infrastructure' for the beauty, personal-care, and broader CPG industries. Shenk, a former U.S. Air Force captain and MIT-trained data scientist who had previously co-founded clean-beauty retailer NakedPoppy and led data science at Eventbrite and Domino Data Labs, teamed up with Shrestha, a research chemist who had worked at clean-beauty brand Beautycounter and held an MBA from USC Marshall, to build a verified product-data network. The company embedded directly with CPG and retail brands to aggregate and verify ingredient, material, and certification data at the SKU level, letting brands 'stand behind their claims' to retailers and consumers who increasingly 'shop their values.'

Novi raised a $1.5M seed round in 2020 led by Defy.vc, followed by a $10.3M Series A in 2021 led by Greylock Partners (Greylock's own portfolio page confirms this as its 'first partnered' round, crediting investors Mike Duboe and Christine Kim), and a $40M Series B in 2022 led by Tiger Global -- roughly $51.8M in total disclosed funding. Through 2021-2023 the company deepened its data network, expanding ingredient/material/certification coverage across thousands of SKUs and building direct data relationships with major retailers and marketplaces (its own materials and press cite Target, Ulta, Sephora, and Macy's among retail partners).

Starting around 2024 and accelerating through 2025-2026, Novi repositioned its verified-data infrastructure to address the rise of AI-driven ('agentic') shopping -- consumers asking ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, and similar tools what to buy instead of searching and browsing. Novi rebranded its offering around 'Answer Engine Optimization' (AEO), launching a patent-pending 'Category Intelligence' methodology (developed with researchers from MIT and Wharton) that explains why AI models recommend specific products and prescribes prioritized, product-level changes to product data, PDP content, and distribution to improve AI recommendation rates. In June 2026 the company filed a provisional patent application for its 'AI Product Selection Intelligence System,' and in July 2026 it launched an integration with Syndigo to speed AI-optimized content syndication.

Business model

B2B SaaS / data-infrastructure platform sold to CPG brands and retailers, combined with a verified product-data network that syndicates structured, certified product data (ingredients, claims, certifications) to retailers, marketplaces, and AI/LLM surfaces.

Not publicly disclosed in detail; appears to be enterprise SaaS/subscription access to the Novi platform (Category Intelligence, AI Shopping Optimizer, Retailer Programs) plus data-distribution/integration fees (e.g., feed syndication via Shopify, Google/Gemini Merchant feeds, Syndigo).