Keychain CEO Oisin Hanrahan says most consumer brands are “completely disconnected” from the manufacturers who actually make their products.
“They didn’t own anything other than the brand and a set of marketing capabilities,” Hanrahan said.
That’s what Hanrahan is trying to change with Keychain. Brands can use the website to search for different products, see who actually makes them, and then contact those manufacturers to potentially partner on future products.
To demonstrate the platform, Hanrahan identified the granola and yogurt he eats every morning. After finding a manufacturer, he said, a major retailer might work with them to create a private-label version of the same granola or yogurt, or a new brand might want to create something healthier or more environmentally friendly.
Hanrahan and Umang Dua previously founded Handy, a home services marketplace, which was acquired by ANGI Homeservices, where Hanrahan served as CEO until 2023. After ANGI, the duo started Keychain with Jordan Weitz.
In November 2023, the New York-based startup announced it had raised an $18 million seed round led by Lightspeed Venture Partners, and it actually launched in February. Since then, Keychain says big brands and retailers have already used the platform to meet $500 million worth of manufacturing needs.
Hanrahan says the company was able to build its product database using an unusually large round. With the help of AI, the startup combined purchased and manually collected data to index more than 763,224 products from 24,027 manufacturers (that’s the exact number that Keychain’s website currently lists).
Keychain recently opened an office in Austin, signed a customer deal with Rich Products, the maker of Cabell cakes, and hired Mitchell Madoff, who previously ran private-label products at Whole Foods, as its head of retail partnerships.
Kevin Spratt, Rich Products’ president of Americas and Canada, called the partnership “a strategic move that will enable us to drive greater growth, foster enhanced innovation and deliver more unique value to our customers” in a statement.
Likewise, Paul Voge, co-founder and CEO of beverage company Aura Bora, said in a statement that Keychain has “significantly streamlined our supply chain” and “saves us a ton of time and resources by eliminating the need to contact manufacturers individually.”
Hanrahan points to a number of large-scale market factors driving demand for keychains, from U.S. trade policies favoring domestic manufacturing to growing consumer interest in products that meet a variety of nutritional and allergy needs.
Ultimately, his goal is for Keychain to connect “anyone who wants to make anything” with “every part of the supply chain,” from manufacturers to packaging.
“We want to build a software layer that connects all these pieces,” he said.
