Body-sizing company Bold Metrics raises $8M

Bold Metrics, a body-sizing software company, has raised $8 million in a Series A round, bringing the company's total funding to $12.3 million.

• Bessemer Venture Partners led the round, and Lytical Ventures, ValueStream Ventures and Nanban Ventures participated.

Why it matters: The return of clothing from e-commerce purchases has cost companies billions of dollars, and Bold Metrics says its technology helps clients reduce their returns on average by 32%.

Context: Roughly 17% of total U.S. retail sales are returned, translating to about $761 billion in merchandise sold last year, according to a report by the National Retail Federation and Appriss Retail.

How it works: Bold Metrics uses artificial intelligence and around 45 million computerized body models to help consumers find their right size and style.

• The company also tracks the technical specifications of each garment, as well as the purchase and return information on the items, to improve recommendations and better understand how customers are fitting into their garb.

What's next: The company said the fresh capital will go toward supporting more clients around the globe and hiring more people to build on its technology and support its research and development initiatives.

What they're saying: "Long term, clients are interested in capturing that data and using that upstream within the organization to help their technical designers have a more data-driven approach to assessing their sizing," CEO Daina Burnes tells Axios.