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Boomerang raises $2.8M pre-seed round to modernize ‘lost & found’

Nancy Dahlberg
Nancy Dahlberg
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Local investors back new Miami startup launching lost & found solutions for US businesses

By Nancy Dahlberg

We’ve all been there. You’ve lost something valuable or sentimental and you’re sure you know exactly where you left it when you were out and about. But the business establishment has no system for logging and tracking lost and found items. They look through a few drawers or take down your information. Then nothing.

The co-founders behind Boomerang, a new Miami-based tech startup, are on a mission to  solve lost & found, starting with a focus on helping businesses run a smart, efficient, and user-friendly lost and found operation. And they have solved big problems before: Skyler Logsdon, Philip Inghelbrecht and Augustine Diep-tran have had collective careers as founders or executives at Shazam, acquired by Apple, the publicly traded TrueCar, Tatari and YourMechanic.

Today, this startup with a lost and found technology platform comes out of stealth mode to announce its $2.8 million pre-seed round. The round included Miami-based 305 Ventures and Flamingo Capital, as well as investment firms GGV Capital, Relay Ventures, Animal Capital, Unanimous Capital, MVC, BevPac, Kalyon Ventures, and angel investors Avrum Elmakis (founder of Clmbr), Lavinia Errico (founder of Equinox), Abe Burns, Nick Montana, Karl Jacob, among others, including a few star athletes and celebrities.  

Lost and found is not just a problem for people who lose their possessions, although Americans spend an estimated $2.7 billion annually to replace them. It’s also a vast and never-ending customer service problem faced by businesses of all sizes across the country. Boomerang is betting that a happy customer most often turns into a return customer.

“Solving lost and found is a massive problem that still exists today. Everyone has their doomsday I lost my blank story and it’s usually at a business. We’re shocked that it’s yet to be solved,  but our experience of solving big problems before is why we can do this,” said Logsdon, CEO of Boomerang, in an interview with Refresh Miami. “We’re super excited to build a company that exists to help people get back the items they love.”

Skyler Logsdon, co-founder and CEO of Boomerang. At top of post, the three co-founders shown on a trip to Cabo, where they came up with the idea for Boomerang.

The 6-month-old startup offers two solutions for businesses. For hotels, restaurants, bars, clubs, universities, stadiums, casinos, theatres, gyms and any other businesses and facilities that collect lost items, Boomerang’s first product is a self-serve lost and found management software product that organizes any business’s L&F inventory management for their lost item claims, in one view, allowing for faster and smarter matching. Boomerang also offers a fully managed lost and found service for institutions that have thousands of lost items every month, such as airports and airlines. For them, the end-to-end process can be outsourced to Boomerang.

Boomerang is a team of nine people now, mostly engineers spread around the country. Logsdon moved to Miami from LA about six weeks ago. Co-founder Diep-tran, Boomerang’s COO, is in the process of moving now.  “For the past 6 months, we’ve been working hard building out our team, the product, and our first batch of partners to launch with,” Logsdon said.

Startups are hard, but the choice to move was easy.

Logsdon visited Miami during Art Basel and said the city was electric and “has the mojo that NYC, LA, SF used to have and it made me want to be a part of it.” At a NASDAQ event during Art Basel, Logsdon met with Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and within minutes, the mayor’s “can do” mentality and commitment to help push startups forward won him over.

“I’ve never had the government want to support and  welcome you with open arms. It was a very easy decision for me to pick up and move Boomerang here six weeks ago because I want to support that,” said Logsdon. “I think Miami is a startup within itself, and I understand how hard it is to get companies off the ground — I’ve done it a few times now. I  felt so aligned with what they’re doing here. It’s great to be here.”

Follow Nancy Dahlberg on Twitter @ndahlberg and email her at [email protected]

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