Keeyu Raises $2.3M to Build Proactive AI for E-Commerce Operations

For years, e-commerce companies have lived with a painful truth: the post-purchase experience is the most chaotic, under-invested and operationally fragile part of the entire retail journey. Delays, stockouts, mismatched data, lost parcels, slow refunds and “Where’s my order?” messages pile up daily, overwhelming customer support teams and eroding customer trust.

During major retail moments like Black Friday and the December holiday period, this chaos intensifies dramatically. In 2024 alone, Australia Post delivered more than 103 million parcels, and social media was filled with complaints about late deliveries, missing orders and stock errors that ended up costing retailers both money and reputation.

This is the environment in which Keeyu, a Sydney-based startup, has introduced a new approach built around one idea: instead of helping teams respond faster, stop problems before they even reach the customer.

Retail’s Biggest Blind Spot: Operations That Stay Stuck in Firefighting Mode

The post-purchase stage, everything that happens after a customer clicks “Buy” is notoriously fragmented. Teams often jump between their Shopify dashboard, warehouse systems, carrier portals, analytics tools, returns platforms and spreadsheets just to understand why a single order is delayed. A fulfillment center may miss a stock update, a fraud filter might hold an order, a parcel might fail delivery or a refund may sit waiting for manual approval. By the time teams discover the issue, the customer has already reached out, frustrated by the silence.

This reactive posture is expensive. It results in lost customers, unnecessary refunds, reduced repeat purchases, operational burnout and long-term reputational damage. Industry studies show that nearly half of shoppers never return after a poor delivery experience. Yet, most brands continue to manage operations in hindsight, discovering problems only after a complaint arrives. Keeyu challenges this status quo by building the missing operational intelligence layer needed to prevent downstream issues entirely.

How Keeyu Works ? AI That Predicts and Prevents Problems Before They Escalate

At the center of Keeyu’s platform is its AI Agent, which integrates directly into a retailer’s existing operational stack. Once connected, it continuously monitors every stage of the order journey (from payment to fulfillment, delivery and returns) to detect risks as they emerge in real time. Instead of letting a stockout go unnoticed or a carrier delay linger for hours, the system identifies the root cause immediately and triggers corrective action before customers ever notice a problem.

The platform is engineered to handle issues like stock discrepancies, fraud-related holds, failed deliveries, lost parcels, mismatched data across systems and delays in refunds or returns processing. By reconciling information across Shopify, 3PL partners, carrier API, and returns systems, Keeyu ensures every system remains synchronized and no error slips through the cracks. The result is fewer support tickets, more reliable deliveries, dramatically improved customer satisfaction and more predictable operational outcomes.

In Keeyu’s own words: helpdesks react, Keeyu prevents.

A Founding Team Built From Retail and Technology

Keeyu was founded by Jevon Le Roux, Tahir Rauf and Tracy Godtschalk, operators who have spent years working within complex retail and technology environments, including P.E Nation, Sportscraft, SurfStitch and Mastercard. After experiencing firsthand how disconnected systems and slow feedback loops were creating avoidable disasters within retail teams, the founders set out to build a platform that would eliminate operational blind spots entirely.

Their goal was not to build a replacement for Shopify, ERPs, warehouse systems or carrier tools, but rather to build the intelligence layer that sits between all of them, making sure nothing breaks without immediate detection.

A $2.3M Pre-Seed Round to Accelerate Growth

Keeyu recently raised $2.3 million in pre-seed funding to scale this new category of proactive e-commerce operations. The round was led by Rampersand, with participation from Archangel, Startmate, Empress Capital, Exhort Ventures, Sydney Angels and Southern Angels. Prominent industry operators and angel investors also contributed, including Marketplacer founder Jason Wyatt, Eucalyptus executive Alexey Mitko, DealsDirect founder and early Afterpay advisor Paul Greenberg and early Canva investor Luigi Iacullo.

The raise comes on the back of strong early momentum. Since launching its beta in July 2024, the platform has been adopted by 15 retailers across 25 brands, such as Rebel Sport NZ, Camilla, EHP Labs, Decjuba, Tony Bianco and Budgy Smuggler. These retailers operate at high volumes where even minor operational failures can quickly cascade into thousands of customer complaints. The company plans to use the fresh capital to expand its product, grow its team and accelerate adoption ahead of the next major peak trading cycles.

Building the Retail Infrastructure That Has Been Missing

The post-purchase layer is arguably the least innovative part of modern retail technology. While storefronts, payment experiences and logistics tools have seen rapid advances, the operational middle, where orders are actually fulfilled, tracked and resolved has remained largely dependent on manual intervention.

Keeyu’s model does not aim to replace existing systems. Instead, it connects them, analyzes them in real time and prevents failures before they escalate. It acts as the operational “glue” that ensures seamless communication between platforms that traditionally fail silently.

In practical terms, this means less human troubleshooting, fewer lost orders, reduced service backlogs and significantly higher customer satisfaction. It is not just automation, it is proactive stability.

Pricing Built for Retailers Serious About Scale

Keeyu offers four subscription plans. Starter, Growth, Plus and Pro. Ranging from $950 to $3,950 per month. This pricing positions the platform as accessible for mid-sized brands while offering the depth required by enterprise retailers with large, complex logistics workflows.

Perfect Timing: The Retail Industry Needs Proactivity More Than Ever

The retail world is entering a period defined by rising customer expectations, tighter margins, and more intense public scrutiny. A single late parcel can spark a viral post, while operational delays ripple across social channels and erode long-term loyalty. During peak seasons, retailers face numerous stress points that multiply overnight.

Keeyu arrives at a moment when the industry needs preventive operations more than incremental improvements. Brands increasingly recognize that simply responding to complaints is no longer enough. They need infrastructure that protects customer experience from the start.

Retail founders describe Keeyu as a “game-changer,” noting that insights that once required entire teams to extract can now be surfaced instantly. For retailers, this kind of predictive control is the next evolution of operational maturity.

The Future of Keeyu: Making Proactive Operations the Global Standard

Looking ahead, Keeyu plans to deepen its AI capabilities, expand into additional markets and refine its intelligence engine to support multi-region supply chain complexity. The long-term vision is clear: a future where retail operations run quietly, accurately and predictably in the background.

Co-founder and chief product officer Tracy Godtschalk describes this vision as the arrival of “silent operations”, a state where teams are no longer overwhelmed by tickets and escalations, because issues are resolved before they surface.

If Keeyu succeeds, preventive retail operations may soon become the industry norm rather than a competitive advantage.