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Sotto

NFC taps that turn store visitors into opted-in contacts

  • Marketing
  • Identity
  • Retail
  • Analytics
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About

Sotto brings the digital cookie to the physical world. Brands place its NFC devices in stores, restaurants, hotels and event activations, and a customer who taps one with their phone identifies themselves and opts in over text, with no app, QR code or form. That starts a two-way, AI-assisted text conversation that carries on after the customer leaves, for support, recommendations, rewards and repeat visits, and every reply builds a zero-party profile the brand owns.

A dashboard shows tap activity across every location and event. Josh Bowen and Paul Juckiewicz, who built the loyalty platform CrowdTwist together through its acquisition by Oracle, started Sotto in New York in 2022.

Array was Sotto's first investor, backing its pre-seed round in December 2022.

Record

Stage
Seed
Category
Marketing
Location
New York, New York
Team
11-50
Array came in at
Pre-Seed, 2022

Founders

  • Joshua Bowen

    CEO and Co-Founder

    Co-founded the loyalty platform CrowdTwist, acquired by Oracle, and later co-founded Simba as COO and ran digital content syndication at Time Inc.; studied at Cornell.

  • Paul Juckiewicz

    CTO and Co-Founder

    Previously CTO of CrowdTwist for seven years, staying through its acquisition by Oracle as senior director of product development; studied at Cornell.