• by Jess Nelson , May 17, 2016

A predictive marketing platform launched Monday to provide retail marketers with a content recommendation engine powered by artificial intelligence.

New York-based startup Grey Jean Technologies provides marketers with a recommendation engine, dubbed "Genie," that leverages machine-learning algorithms to predict consumer purchase behavior. Genie predicts a consumer's next product purchase based on a wide range of consumer behavior data sets, including transaction history, demographics, personal preferences, social activity and geolocation.

Craig Alberino, CEO of Grey Jean, says the company can predict a consumer’s next purchase with up to 72% accuracy in any category it supports.

Grey Jean marketers can drive sales and visitors by providing contextual and relevant email marketing messages. In addition, Grey Jean’s SaaS technology can be implemented quickly, and integrates with a retailer's point-of-sale, CRM and loyalty systems to receive additional customer data.

Grey Jean already counts spirit company Hiro Sake and swimming pool retailer Namco Pool among its clients, and both companies now use Grey Jean’s recommendation engine.

“Anyone can get data, but it’s more about how you use it -- the algorithms and being able to adjust and accommodate individual customer needs and unique consumer behaviors rather than forcing data to fit into a rigid framework,” Alberino says.

Genie uses numerous public and private data sources to help personalize its recommendations for retailers by leveraging existing knowledge about customers, through targeting people more efficiently. "This reduces expense and ultimately the ‘noise’ to the end consumer,” says Alberino.

The personalization company also announced a $2 million seed funding round from angel investors and company management, including co-founder and President Cosmas Wong. Wong also founded ENSO Financial Management LLP (EFM), which was acquired by ICAP for an undisclosed sum earlier this year.

With the seed funding, Alberino says Grey Jean plans to add employees during the next 18 months to support sales goals, business development, engineering and customer success team members.