Glia Tells Consumers Which Retailers Share Their Causes

Glia, a startup with an iPhone app that lets consumers see what retailers and brands share their ethical and political values, has raised $250,000 in seed capital, TechCrunch reported on Monday (April 27).

The company didn’t say who provided the investment, but did say that the money will be used to build out the first generation of products. The app is currently just available for iOS, although an Android version will now be in the works.

The app is the brainchild of political consultant Barry Klein, who worked on Wall Street and then on election campaigns for several Democratic candidates, but has also hired a Republican consultant to help compile Glia’s database of which causes consumer brands and other companies have supported. For smaller businesses, Glia sends out questionnaires.

While typical social commerce apps depend on user reviews to steer consumers toward local retailers or restaurants, Glia flips that model. An app user fills out a profile of political and social likes and dislikes. The app then uses Glia’s database to match the user with restaurants and stores that support similar causes.

“When people find out about what the values of a company are or the values of a state, it has an impact on how people spend their money,” Klein said in an interview. “What we’re able to do is look at what are businesses doing with their money, what they’re saying they want to do, and what their [corporate social responsibility] looks like. Then our algorithm gives that person a score that matches that individual with that business at that point in time.”

The “values-based shopping” startup was launched in February 2014 by Klein, startup consultant Chris Rappley and product development executive Tahlia Sutton. It has also attracted Facebook’s employee number one, Taner Halicioglu, as an advisor.

Klein said the potential user base for the service is at least 21 million to 31 million users who are members of issue advocacy groups, as well as millennials “who may not be active in electoral politics, but are doing good in their community,” Klein said.

Less clear is how the startup will be able to monetize the app. Klein told the San Diego Union-Tribune last fall that selling the data of individual users or businesses is not going to happen, but he and his partners are still looking at possible ways of making money. “We have a few revenue ideas in mind for how best to monetize the app over the long term, but we don’t expect to have revenue features in the app for the foreseeable future,” he said.