[Techtaffy Newsdesk]

Needle has closed a $10.5 million series B funding round, co-led by Shasta Ventures and Rembrandt Venture Partners. Jim Barnett, a partner at Shasta Ventures, and Douglas Schrier, a partner at Rembrandt Venture Partners, will both join Needle’s board of directors.

Needle provides ecommerce companies the ability to link certified product experts and fans of the brand with customers shopping the site to provide guided shopping assistance via chat, video or voice.

Morgan Lynch (Founder and CEO, Needle): Today’s buyer expects authenticity and expertise, and passing them off to a person in a contact center who has no genuine experience with the company’s products and is using canned answers is the antithesis of that.

Needle is a privately held company based in Salt Lake City. It was founded in 2009 by entrepreneur Morgan Lynch. This marks the second time Shasta Ventures has invested in a company founded by Mr. Lynch, having previously backed his startup company Logoworks, which was acquired by HP in 2007. Prior to this round, Needle raised a series A round of $2 million.

[Image Courtesy: Needle]