Former Obama campaign CTO launches mobile commerce platform

Modest, a startup founded by the engineers behind Obama’s re-election campaign, is making it easier for small retailers to create a mobile shopping experience in a smartphone app.

The company has launched a mobile commerce platform which helps businesses quickly create complete stores in the form of a mobile app, which can save customer information to allow one-tap purchases. They can also drop the solution into existing mobile applications.

Former Obama campaign CTO Harper Reed’s company works using a freemium model, which can be upgraded for $200 to include push notifications, e-mail buying, the ability to offer promo codes, and remove the branding from Modest. Several engineers from the Obama re-election campaign are involved with Modest, along with CTO Dylan Richard, who also worked at Threadless and Cerate & Barrel with Reed.

It is designed to integrate with any commerce platform, along with automatic Shopify and Magento integrations. The app is currently available on iOS, with the Android version on its way, along with Apple Pay and PayPal support.

The modest platform, which was a year in development, is backed by former Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt, Greylock Partners, 500 Startups and Base Ventures.

Related reading

Leave a comment