Stella & Dot's Herrin raises $5 million for Marklo AI

Jessica Herrin's path to Marklo runs through two earlier companies. She built Stella & Dot into a business that sold more than $2 billion in products through independent sellers and paid out more than $500 million to those sellers. When COVID-19 shut down in-home gatherings, its business dropped 80% almost overnight. Herrin sold the businesses and brands separately, later bought back the Stella & Dot brand, and used it to test Marklo.

Marklo takes shape around a problem Herrin says she kept running into: marketing data lives in separate systems, so teams miss the bigger picture. The software pulls from Shopify, Klaviyo, Attentive, Meta and Google, then puts past launches, promotions and sales into a calendar. It suggests what to promote next and drafts a campaign plan for humans to review and approve.

Forerunner's Kirsten Green said Herrin's experience as an operator was a central reason for backing Marklo, pointing to her firsthand knowledge of where teams lose time and what brands need before trusting new technology. Herrin's return to venture funding also marks a shift: she built Stella & Dot with about $2 million in capital and a focus on profitability, and now wants outside money to hire engineers and develop Marklo faster.