Profitmind has raised $9 million in Series A funding to expand its AI decision intelligence platform for retail. The round was led by Accenture Ventures, with participation from new investor Thorndale Farm, Inc., as well as returning backers Magarac Venture Partners, AI Fund led by Chairman Andrew Ng, and Lightscape Partners.

Several individual investors also joined, including board member Mario Ciampi, former President of Disney Store and former COO of The Children’s Place. The company did not disclose its valuation.

The fresh capital comes as retailers face mounting pressure to act faster on pricing, inventory, and assortment decisions.

Why Retail Decision-Making Is Under Pressure

Retailers are not lacking data. They are lacking speed and clarity. Pricing, merchandising, planning, and marketing teams often spend days aligning reports across separate systems before they can act. In a market that changes daily, those delays carry a cost.

“Retail teams are not short on data, but they are short on time and decision-making confidence. This investment allows us to scale a platform that replaces days of manual work with clear, strategy-aligned recommendations teams can act on immediately with predictable outcomes.”

Dr. Mark Chrystal, Co-Founder and CEO of Profitmind.

Profitmind positions itself as a system that goes beyond dashboards. Instead of producing more analysis, it delivers prioritized recommendations tied to financial impact.

Scaling Globally and Expanding Product Capabilities

The company plans to use the new funding to expand its platform to more retailers worldwide, add new product capabilities, and grow its team.

Profitmind recently partnered with Microsoft to list its platform on Microsoft Marketplace and Azure. The collaboration broadens access for enterprise customers and simplifies adoption inside existing retail environments. The company’s relationship with Accenture is also expected to support larger retail transformation projects, allowing clients to integrate an AI decision layer without rebuilding core systems.

“In retail, AI is reinventing how people shop, how businesses operate and how employees work. Retailers are navigating relentless disruption—and nowhere is the impact more acute than in merchandising. Frequently considered the heart and soul of retail, executives are often overwhelmed by massive amounts of data, reports and spreadsheets, leaving little time for effective decision-making. Profitmind bridges the gap between insight and action through agentic AI. It mirrors how retailers run their businesses, linking data from multiple sources for clear, prioritized recommendations that can be trusted and executed quickly in response to an increasingly competitive industry.”

Jill Standish, Accenture’s global retail lead.

Built by Retail Operators for Retail Teams

Founded in Pittsburgh, Profitmind was created by retail operators aiming to reduce manual reporting and spreadsheet reconciliation. Its platform connects strategy, internal data, and external signals into a single decision layer.

“For AI to be useful in large organizations, it has to move beyond dashboards and predictions to support real decisions. Under Mark’s leadership, Profitmind has built agentic AI to coordinate decisions across teams, which is where much of the economic value sits as companies scale.”

Andrew Ng, founder of DeepLearning.AI.

Retail teams begin the week with a ranked list of actions. These can include price adjustments, promotion changes, inventory moves, or assortment updates. Each recommendation is tied to expected impact on sales, profit, and working capital. Approved decisions are pushed into execution tools, and outcomes are tracked inside the platform to improve future recommendations.

Profitmind serves retailers across apparel, footwear, auto parts, and home goods. Clients range from $20 million to $100 billion in revenue. According to the company, the platform has driven outcomes such as a 250-plus basis point profit improvement for one client and saved hundreds of hours per month in manual data work.

Investors and Prior Backing

The Series A round builds on earlier support from Magarac Venture Partners, AI Fund led by Andrew Ng, and Lightscape Partners. Thorndale Farm, Inc. joined as a new investor in this round, alongside Accenture Ventures as lead.

With Accenture and Microsoft now closely involved, Profitmind gains access to enterprise distribution channels and advisory support that could accelerate deployments across global retail organizations.

Origianl Creator: Paulo Palma
Original Link: https://justainews.com/companies/funding-news/profitmind-raises-9m-series-a-for-retail-ai/
Originally Posted: Wed, 25 Feb 2026 17:51:44 +0000