Startfresh, a venture capital firm, has led a seed funding round in Trozo, a Bengaluru-based startup focused on building software for managing brand-customer relationships. Trozo plans to use the funds to expand its product offerings and accelerate its growth across key sectors, including food and beverage, direct-to-consumer (D2C), and retail.

Founded by Pavan Govindan, Janardhan J V, and Dilip Adiga, Trozo aims to provide businesses with deeper insights into customer behavior, enabling brands to build stronger, more direct relationships with consumers. Unlike traditional third-party platforms, Trozo focuses on empowering brands to manage their customer interactions in-house, giving them more control over their customer data.

According to Startfresh partner B. M. Manjunath, the investment aligns with the firm’s strategy of backing companies that tackle core challenges in customer engagement and data management. Trozo’s platform promises to help brands understand customer preferences and behavior, enabling more personalized communication and improving long-term customer retention.

The brand-customer relationship management (CRM) sector has seen increased interest in recent years, particularly as businesses seek alternatives to traditional third-party marketing channels. The shift toward first-party data collection, driven by privacy regulations and changes in digital advertising, is creating demand for tools that allow brands to manage their customer data more effectively.

In India, where e-commerce is projected to grow rapidly in the coming years, platforms like Trozo are positioned to capitalize on the increasing need for businesses to deepen their engagement with consumers. According to a report by Bain & Company, India’s e-commerce market is expected to reach $60 billion in gross merchandise value by 2025, further fueling the demand for advanced CRM solutions.

Trozo plans to onboard more than 100 brands in the coming months and aims to expand its user base across India and the Middle East. As the company continues to scale, it will be interesting to see how it competes in the fast-evolving CRM market, which is increasingly focused on data privacy and first-party insights.