The shift from conventional e-commerce to AI-driven buying is making a elementary infrastructure downside: whereas Google, Amazon, and ChatGPT command the agentic commerce channel by means of proprietary product knowledge, impartial builders and retailers lack entry to the common product intelligence wanted to construct aggressive AI buying experiences. McKinsey tasks that agentic commerce might generate $1T in US retail income by the top of the last decade, but the infrastructure to help this market stays concentrated within the arms of some tech giants. Channel3 is constructing the impartial layer that modifications this dynamic, offering builders and retailers with a real-time, common product database overlaying 50 million merchandise throughout tens of 1000’s of manufacturers. Utilizing multimodal AI to match merchandise throughout retailers, acknowledge variants, and extract wealthy attributes, Channel3 allows any developer to construct AI buying experiences with built-in affiliate monetization, whereas giving retailers frictionless distribution into this rising channel. The corporate already powers a whole lot of builders constructing AI stylists, inside design instruments, and buying assistants, processing product knowledge by means of compute-intensive AI that understands merchandise the way in which an individual would.
AlleyWatch sat down with Channel3 CEO and cofounder Alexander Schiff to be taught extra concerning the enterprise, the founder’s journey from constructing an AI tutor to creating common product infrastructure, and the corporate’s latest $6M Seed spherical that brings Channel3’s complete funding to $6M.
Who had been your traders and the way a lot did you increase?
We raised a $6 million Seed spherical led by Matrix, with participation from Ludlow Ventures, Paul Graham, Sri Batchu (former CMO of TheRealReal), and Matteo Franceschetti (founding father of EightSleep).
Inform us concerning the services or products that Channel3 affords.
Channel3 supplies a real-time, common product database that connects each product, variant, attribute and service provider supply throughout the net. Builders and retailers use Channel3’s API to energy AI-driven buying experiences, enabling any app or agent to find, evaluate, and route customers to merchandise immediately.
What impressed the beginning of Channel3?
I met George Lawrence at Duke College, the place we cofounded our first startup collectively. We cofounded Channel3 to unravel a rising ache level in AI buying. I first acknowledged the issue whereas constructing an AI tutor that might suggest merchandise and earn affiliate income, realizing no current resolution might help this sort of agentic buying.
How is Channel3 totally different?
Channel3 offers builders and retailers AI-ready entry to merchandise throughout the web, one thing solely Google, Amazon, and ChatGPT at present personal. Channel3 is impartial, storefront-agnostic, real-time, and powered by multimodal AI fashions that match merchandise, hyperlink variants, extract attributes, and maintain knowledge constantly up to date.
What market does Channel3 goal and the way huge is it?
Channel3 targets the quickly rising agentic commerce market similar to AI functions and brokers that assist shoppers discover, evaluate, and purchase merchandise. McKinsey tasks that agentic commerce might generate $1T in US retail income by the top of the last decade, representing roughly one-third of all on-line gross sales.
What’s your small business mannequin?
We cost for calls to our API, and take a rev-share of commissions paid out on our platform
What was the funding course of like?
Popping out of YC in summer time 2025, we spoke with plenty of traders who instantly understood the size of what we’re constructing. Matrix stood out with a shared imaginative and prescient and the conviction to assist us transfer quick, making them the precise companion for our subsequent chapter.
What are the largest challenges that you simply confronted whereas elevating capital?
Fairly the other of difficult. The method went easily, as we related with quite a few traders who actually aligned with our imaginative and prescient. The traders we met with noticed the potential behind what we’re constructing and we couldn’t be extra thrilled to have moved as quick as we did to have this prepared for the vacation buying season.
What components about your small business led your traders to put in writing the examine?
Our lead investor, Kojo Osei of Matrix, shared that Channel3 is tackling a “generational alternative” and constructing what he believes will turn out to be the foundational layer for the agentic commerce period. The workforce’s deep technical experience and timing in an rising huge market had been key components, in line with Kojo.
What are the milestones you intend to attain within the subsequent six months?
Channel3 will use its funding to:
- Increase its engineering workforce
- Make investments additional in compute-intensive AI
- Proceed scaling its real-time product catalog past the prevailing 50 million merchandise
The place do you see the corporate going now over the close to time period?
Channel3 plans to speed up improvement of its common product graph, increase service provider participation, and additional set up itself because the impartial infrastructure layer powering AI-driven commerce.
You’re seconds away from signing up for the most popular checklist in NYC Tech!
Enroll at the moment
