• by Colin Kirkland , January 17, 2023

Omnichannel experiences continue to gain traction among consumers. According to Shopify, more than half of shoppers look at a product in-store before making the purchase online.

To help brand marketers and sales teams bridge the gap between online and offline experiences, creating a seamless omnichannel journey for the consumer, QR codes can offer a cost-effective, minimally invasive way to merge omnichannel touchpoints and develop a comprehensive brand experience.

This is the belief of QR-code customer engagement platform Beaconstac, which has announced $25 million in Series A funding led by Telescope Partners and Accel.

The company says it will use the money to further develop its SaaS platform, build its team, and work toward enabling new and existing customers to adopt QR codes as a means to create personal connections with a wide audience at scale, ultimately bridging physical world customer experiences with digital.

Beaconstac has created digital-to-physical experiences for companies such as United Airlines, Amazon, Deloitte, Revlon, Nestle, and Marriott. In 2022, the company announced 5 million monthly active users, and says it helped businesses create and track 1.8 million QR codes that were scanned over 150 million times by consumers.

According to Business Insider, QR codes may have become marketers' secret weapon, with new use cases having emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, including interactive TV, vehicle screens, public transit, billboards, product packaging, store shelves, buildings, shopping bags and business cards.

Furthermore, the number of U.S. smartphone users scanning a QR code is estimated to increase from 83.4 million in 2022 to 99.5 million in 2025.

“In a world where touchpoints between brand and consumer have grown exponentially, there is a pressing need for frictionless technology that meets consumers on and offline,” says Sharat Potharaju, CEO of Beaconstac.

“It’s clear QR codes are becoming an integral part of how businesses communicate with their customers,” adds Mickey Arabelovic, founder of Telescope Partners.

Beaconstac currently employs 75 people in its offices in New York and Bangalore, India with plans to increase its workforce by roughly 200% in 2023.