Haystack

Haystack is building the most accurate database of local inventory and the super-app for in-person shopping, making the 85% of shopping done at brick-and-mortar stores as easy as shopping on Amazon. For shoppers, Haystack is creating an Amazon-like product search and purchasing experience powered by your local stores. For merchants, Haystack is helping drive discovery and new revenue channels, and improving stores’ bottom lines through optimized inventory and direct customer engagement. Haystack tackles the pain points of offline inventory by 1) building AI + ML algorithms to predict the majority of inventory data that is still offline, and 2) crowdsourcing real-time information from shoppers and merchants to rapidly expand the database of inventory that is online. Haystack is led by Ben Dean, former Chief Data Scientist for NYC under Mayor Bloomberg and Wharton MBA, who one day while caught in the rain realized he couldn’t find the nearest stores selling umbrellas.