Say Haloo to the first professional-grade self-service trademark search and registration platform. We are a women-led deep AI startup building the future of trademarking. And by the future of trademarking, we mean both AI-driven and on-chain.
Why? “We saw so many small-business owners lose everything overnight because they had not registered a trademark. That’s why we have a passion for these protections and why we started Haloo.”
Julie MacDonell
CEO and Co-Founder, Haloo
Problem.
Trademark registration is the only way to own a brand - you can’t even legally own your website domain without trademarking it, and it will soon be a mandatory requirement for selling on e-commerce platforms like Amazon and Web3 environments like in-game commerce.
But the process is complicated and you really need an expert to get it right. The friction of having to work slowly with expensive lawyers leaves hundreds of thousands of SMBs unprotected and failing to clear and protect trademarks can all too often mean failure for a business.
In fact, trademark infringement affects 85% of all businesses, and more than half of them are forced to close or rebrand.
Solution.
For $149 (versus >$2,000 with a lawyer), our proprietary AI technology empowers SMBs with thoroughly searched trademarks and flawlessly compliant trademark applications - something that even top-tier firms frequently fail to deliver but that well-engineered and rigorously tested machine learning can do at scale and around the clock.
But our story doesn’t stop there.
Once we had completed development for our SMB product, we realised we had created the world's most accurate and comprehensive instant trademark search technology. In tests, Haloo consistently outperformed all of the market's major players in trademark search, including Clarivate, Corsearch, Markify, and others.
This had two significant implications for the company:
1. it provided us with a SaaS opportunity
2. it massively increased our TAM
So we used 2022 to lay the groundwork for this much larger opportunity.
After determining that our lowest CAC for the SMB market was through large established distribution partners such as GoDaddy and Amazon, we developed an API and built a partner pipeline. We signed agreements with GoDaddy and Shoplazza for deep integration and created an Amazon pilot. We're in talks with RocketLawyer, Wix.com, Zen Business, Web.com, Tucows, Squarespace, and many others. We also developed the world's first trademark search and application NFTs, enabling us to collaborate with Web3 pioneers such as Unstoppable Domains. Web3 creator brands are about to explode, and our SMB product is poised to be a first mover.
Most importantly, we packaged our technology in an enterprise SaaS platform for large enterprises, naming agencies and law firms.
In September, we started selling the enterprise product and within 4-6 weeks with one part-time salesperson, reached $950,000 in our funnel. Companies like L'Oreal conduct 200-400 trademark searches per month, while naming agencies like Landor & Fitch conduct thousands. Haloo provides them with higher accuracy searches that are exponentially faster and cost a fraction of what they are currently paying.
Discord was our first customer.
We anticipate hockey stick growth in 2023, and we are raising a bridge round of funding to strategically position the company for a strong Series A around the third quarter of 2023.
Nobody could have predicted how bad the economy would get this year, but despite missing revenue targets due to a slower sales cycle and later-than-expected launches or delays with some of our major partners, such as GoDaddy and Amazon, we remained focused on growing our traction.
We are on the verge of some very big deals, including contracts with some of the world's largest agencies with high volume trademark search needs, and we will launch cobranded marketing campaigns on the SMB side with our existing partners in Q1 2023, as well as rolling out new API partnerships throughout the first half of the year.
MORE ABOUT HALOO...
We are long-time friends who co-founded Haloo at the pinnacle of our careers and have extensive domain knowledge.
Julie MacDonell, Co-founder, CEO. Senior-level lawyer who specializes in Trademark, Law Intellectual Property (IP). Currently the most quoted trademark expert in Canada, regularly providing commentary for Bloomberg, Globe & Mail, the Toronto Star, CBC.
Sarah Ruest, Co-founder, CTO. Data engineer with 19 years of experience in startups (MindbridgeAI) and federal government. As Chief Technology Officer, she oversees the formulation, architecture, and implementation of Haloo’s technology initiatives. Sarah has expertise in all phases of software development, from analysis and design to coding, integrating, DevOps, and testing.
Our advisors have been there, done that, as operators or are leaders within some of the most successful tech companies.
Erin Zipes, former VP Legal & Corporate Secretary, Shopify; current CLO, 1Password and Founding Partner, Backbone Angels
Advisor, Legal & Strategy
Akins Van Horne, former Product Lead, Gusto; current Vice President Of Product Management, ThreeFlow
Advisor, Product
Bryce Howitson, UX Prototyper, Google Developer Expert
Advisor, UX & UI
Atlee Clark, Director, Operations, Shop @Shopify
Advisor, Partnerships
Steve Irvine, Founder & CEO, Integrate.ai
Advisor, Machine Learning
Frank Vella, CEO, Constant Contact
Mentor to Julie in her role as CEO
We take diversity very seriously, so seriously that it's written into our mission statement.
In Haloo's executive ranks, we have four women: our CEO, our CTO, our Head of AI Science, and our VP Sales. Fifty percent of our tech staff identify female. Nearly 90% of our workforce identifies with underrepresented groups.
We have a clear path to exceeding $4MM in revenue in 2023. Reach out - I'd love to tell you how!