The days of scrolling around the internet trying to find a present for your friend or a new blazer for your wardrobe are coming to an end. AI agents are coming to ecommerce…meaning brands are rushing to figure out what it means for their business.

ReFiBuy, a Raleigh-based startup, wants to help brands and retailers stand out in our new agentic age. And they just landed a $13.6 million seed round to do it.

 

What Is Agentic Commerce Optimization?

Co-founder and CEO Scot Wingo saw the problem ReFiBuy is trying to solve firsthand when building ChannelAdvisor, an early darling of the ecommerce era. The company went public in 2013 and was sold to private equity in 2022.

At the time, a gap in ecommerce technology could only be filled by employing a lot of humans…a problem that often came down to the variations and complexity of products on a site. Advances in agentic AI have changed the game. Today, AI shopping agents determine how a brand’s products are evaluated, compared, and ultimately recommended across digital platforms.

Scot Wingo (from website)

Agentic Commerce Optimization (ACO) is the practice of preparing a brand’s product data — at the individual SKU level — so that AI shopping agents can accurately evaluate, compare, and recommend those products to consumers. Where traditional ecommerce optimization focused on search rankings and human browsing behavior, ACO targets the AI layer now sitting between brands and buyers, or the agents making product eligibility decisions on a shopper’s behalf. ReFiBuy’s platform works at that layer.

Analysts estimate that by 2030, agentic commerce could represent $300 billion to $500 billion in U.S. online retail sales, roughly 15% to 25% of total e-commerce, according to a 2024 report from Bain.

 

ReFiBuy’s $13.6M Seed Round: Who Invested

At a glance

Round: $13.6M seed (oversubscribed, closed May 2026)

Lead investor: NewRoad Capital Partners

Additional investors: Ridge Ventures, Silicon Road Ventures, Incubate Fund, VELA Partners, G20 Ventures, Commerce Ventures, Knoll Ventures

Use of funds: Scaling ReFiBuy’s Commerce Intelligence Engine and go-to-market

Wingo said the ReFiBuy, which launched in 2025, opened up its seed round in March of 2026. The startup received inbound interest from investors, particularly in the ecommerce and RetailTech space.

Today the team announced it was closing its oversubscribed $13.6 million seed round. The lead investor was Arkansas-based NewRoad Capital Partners, with additional investors including San Francisco-based Ridge Ventures, Atlanta-based Silicon Road Ventures, Japan-based Incubate Fund, and San Francisco-based VELA Partners, Massachusetts-based G20 Ventures, San Fransisco-based Commerce Ventures, and Atlanta-based Knoll Ventures.

“The part of the commerce stack that wins every platform shift is the one closest to product  data,” said Sid Mookerji, Managing Partner of Silicon Road Ventures, in a press statement. “ReFiBuy is working at that layer with a team that understands what it takes to operate at catalog scale across  thousands of SKUs and hundreds of retail partners.”

The funding will go towards scaling ReFiBuy’s Commerce Intelligence Engine and

accelerate go-to-market strategies, according to a press statement released today by the startup.

“We’re way ahead of the competition, but they’re all moving fast,” Wingo told Hypepotamus, adding that the injection of seed capital will help the startup “really shoot ahead.”

 

Building In 30-Day Cycles

Since Wingo and ReFiBuy are building in AI, we had to ask: How is the team keeping up with the rate of technological change right now?

“We honestly can’t look out more than 30 days,” Wingo said. “It is hard to estimate how fast we can build.”

The 30-day windows, Wingo added, gives the seed-stage startup the opportunity to keep focus on their priorities.

“We’re doing six to eight months of old school work in 30 days. We’re going so fast, you can get up in a dark corner really quick if you don’t poke your head up and evaluate.”