InTurn Attracts High-Profile Investors

The already burgeoning off-price sector could accelerate with B-to-B technology being introduced to automate how buyers procure excess inventory from brands. The new platform, called InTurn, has attracted some high-profile industry investors — Ken Seiff, founder of Bluefly, and Silas Chou, who backed the Michael Kors and Tommy Hilfiger businesses. In addition, Kirsten Green of Forerunner Ventures led a $3.6 million round of financing that included Seiff’s Beanstalk Ventures seed investment firm; Novel TMT, which is Chou’s family’s technology-investment arm; Lerer Hippeau Ventures; Bobby Lent, cofounder of Ariba, and T5 Capital. “We are redefining an area of retail that’s been very manual and outdated,” Ronen Lazar, InTurn’s chief executive officer and cofounder, told WWD. “Instead of taking days or weeks to assemble the offer, it can now take minutes. It improves the work flow on both sides, making things happen faster.” “While nearly every aspect of the retail experience has been automated, the sellers and buyers of excess inventory have been completely ignored,” Seiff added. “Transactions between the sellers and buyers have been run on Excel spreadsheets for 40 years. This is the first big innovation in this space since Microsoft Excel.” According to the executives, InTurn eliminates the manual labor involved in creating spreadsheets;

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