More than half of consumers say personalisation in retail does not work well, and 90% of marketers value first-party data, but less than 30% use it effectively across all channels. Retailers usually have three parts: data systems to collect information, engagement platforms like Braze, Klaviyo, or Bloomreach to send messages, and until now, nothing in between to make decisions.
Founded in January 2025, Warsaw-based Replenit calls itself the “decision layer,” adding reasoning between a retailer’s data warehouse and its marketing tools. Ilyas Kurklu, co-founder and CEO, describes the company to TFN as the “pre-frontal cortex of global commerce.”
It aims to be an AI decision engine for retail, working on top of current marketing tools to make real-time, personalised decisions for every customer. For every customer, Replenit decides when to reach out, what action to take, such as sending a replenishment reminder, cross-sell, upsell, churn-saving offer, and which channel to use, including email, SMS, app push, web push, or WhatsApp.
Today, the company announced a $2.5 million in a pre-seed round, led by Movens Capital and Vastpoint, with backing from Logo Ventures, DigitalOcean Ventures, Finberg, Caucasus Ventures, and angel investor Mati Staniszewski, CEO and co-founder of ElevenLabs.
Building a ‘decision layer’ of retail AI
Replenit was founded by Ilyas Kurklu, Alp Karacaev, Cenk Karacaev, Caner Demir, Ömer Fatih Özden, and Egemen Akdan. Five out of six co-founders worked at Insider, which became a unicorn in 2022 after raising $121 million and reaching a $2 billion valuation by 2023. Four were also shareholders.
Replenit’s choice to be a “decision layer” is strategic, as it avoids direct competition with the biggest players. Unlike Dynamic Yield, Insider, and SAP Emarsys, the startup figures out what a customer plans to do next by reading their behaviour for clues about intent and context. Replenit stands out with its “machine theory of mind,” a reasoning system inspired by how people understand each other’s thoughts.
“In real use, Replenit can create a unique, automated journey for each of a million customers. It keeps adjusting the timing, product, and message for every person, all without manual rules,’ Kurklu explains to TFN.
Retailers using Replenit have seen up to 340% more repeat-purchase revenue and a 53% boost in CRM channel performance, all without sending more messages, according to the company. The platform integrates only with Databricks, Salesforce, Braze, Bloomreach, and Klaviyo, working alongside existing marketing tech to make buying easier and avoid migration costs.
What comes next
Choosing Warsaw as the headquarters was a strategic move. Even though VC investment in Central and Eastern Europe fell by 23% in 2024 and deals dropped by over 70% since 2022, the number of startups and the ecosystem’s value are still rising. Replenit sees Warsaw’s engineering talent, EU access, and lower costs as key advantages over cities like London or Amsterdam.
The $2.5 million will go toward product development, AI research, and team growth in Poland and the Netherlands. The company also plans to expand into the US and set up a local team before the end of 2026.
Replenit’s bigger goal is to be the “reasoning layer” for all of commerce, acting as the intelligence behind every major retail brand’s marketing, much like Stripe does for payments or Snowflake for data.
Here’s the pitch deck it used
