Chord, a New York startup that builds a data platform for commerce brands, has acquired Zenlytic, a New York company whose AI analyst answers business questions straight from a company's data. Chord announced the deal on November 3, 2026, and said it doubles its revenue.
The companies did not disclose terms. AdExchanger reported the price at $5 million, and ExchangeWire, citing Axios Pro, described it as an all-stock deal of about that size. Zenlytic's technology and key team members move to Chord.
The deal brings Chord Zenlytic's enterprise customers, including Verizon, J.Crew, Domino's and Stanley Black & Decker, and is meant to take Chord beyond online retail into the wider enterprise market.
What Zenlytic built
Zenlytic was founded in 2018 by Ryan Janssen, its chief executive, and Paul Blankley, AlleyWatch reported. It sold business intelligence software built around Zoë, an AI agent that sits on a company's data warehouse and answers questions in plain language.
In the announcement Janssen said the company had tried to give enterprises answers they could trust from their own data, with tools for developers to keep business definitions accurate. AdExchanger noted that Zenlytic worked with customers across industries, not only ecommerce.
Zenlytic's customer list went well beyond retail. Verizon, a telecoms carrier, Domino's, a restaurant chain, and Stanley Black & Decker, a tool maker, were among the names Chord gave in the announcement. That spread is a large part of why Chord, which built its business on consumer brands selling online, wanted the company.
“Companies shouldn't have to hand over control of their most valuable business context to benefit from AI.”
Why Chord is buying
Chord was founded in 2021 and is led by co-founder and chief executive Bryan Mahoney. It began as a headless commerce software company and now pitches itself as a layer between AI models and a company's data, bringing data in, analysing it and putting it to use. It works with Shopify-style brands and with Snowflake users; Sonos is a client, according to AdExchanger.
Chord will combine Zenlytic's analytics engine with its own data ingestion and activation tools. Zoë will largely replace Chord's existing analyst agent, while Chord keeps its other agents, AdExchanger reported. Chord also wants to move some Zenlytic customers onto its data infrastructure.
Mahoney compared the moment to commerce brands' past dependence on Facebook and Google to reach their own customers. He said that, as OpenAI and Anthropic become central to how companies use AI, businesses risk a similar dependence over their data, and that Chord wants them to keep control of that context whichever model they use.
The founders and the funding
Zenlytic raised $15.4 million in equity funding in total, according to AlleyWatch. Its backers include Sequoia Capital, Bain Capital Ventures, Correlation Ventures, Primary Venture Partners, M13, Company Ventures, Habitat Partners and 14Peaks Capital. In 2024 it raised a $9 million Series A led by M13, Pulse 2.0 reported.
At a reported $5 million in stock, the price is roughly a third of what Zenlytic's investors put in. Mahoney told Axios Pro, according to ExchangeWire, that Chord plans to raise a Series A of about $15 million in the coming months at a valuation of $70 million to $80 million.
After the deal the combined company has about 30 full-time employees and about 60 customers, with annual run-rate revenue approaching $10 million, AdExchanger reported.
What happens to customers
Zenlytic's customers will keep the Zoë analyst, which becomes Chord's main analyst agent. Chord said it will offer them its data ingestion and activation tools. In a corrected version of the release, Janssen said the deal would let customers move from asking questions to acting on the answers.
The companies did not say whether Zenlytic's brand will stay or how many of its staff moved to Chord. The release refers only to key team members.
For Chord, the deal brings an enterprise customer list and a larger revenue base ahead of its planned fundraise, and a way into markets beyond the online brands it started with. Both companies are based in New York.
