Tocarte

What Tocarte does

Tocarte is a solo consultancy practice operated by founder Todd Carter, structured as a semantic infrastructure service rather than a traditional digital marketing or web agency. The practice designs and implements canonical data layers above existing commerce, CMS, and streaming platforms (Shopify, Lightspeed, WordPress, CTV) so that a business's inventory, products, and content are represented coherently across every downstream machine-readable surface — search engines, ad stacks, programmatic channels, product feeds, and AI discovery systems such as ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Google SGE. The offering is organized as a five-stage engagement ladder: symptom diagnosis, Multi-Surface Inventory Audit (a two-week structured diagnostic), canonical layer design and build, surface conformity wiring, and a continuous optimization loop. The methodology is positioned as AI-native in implementation, with the founder noting that workflows previously requiring a research consortium and five external APIs (HyperTED) now run via a single LLM prompt.

The go-to-market is direct and sales-led, with no channel partners, marketplaces, or paid acquisition infrastructure. Client outreach runs through a single email address ([email protected]), and the website functions as the primary marketing asset, presenting the five-layer machine-readable business stack, the engagement ladder, and a lineage narrative dating back to MPEG-7 standards work in 1996. Production proofs include STIRR (acquired from Sinclair Broadcasting in 2024, serving 8M+ monthly users across 70+ local news stations), Metier Seattle (specialty cycling retail, 250+ enriched products), and Go-Cottage (hospitality). The practice is bootstrapped with no disclosed venture funding, operates as Tocarte LLC, and is sized at 1–10 employees with the founder explicitly identified as the sole practitioner.

The business model is professional services with three revenue streams: a fixed-scope two-week audit entry engagement, a build engagement for the canonical data layer, and recurring/managed-services revenue from continuous optimization retainers. Pricing is not publicly disclosed; the practice indicates that AI-native implementation keeps engagement cost meaningfully below comparable infrastructure consulting work. The addressable client base is intentionally narrow — specialty commerce, hospitality, and founder-led businesses — and explicitly excludes enterprise as the primary buyer. The strategic anchor is the founder's individual 30-year career track record, which includes $20M in unlocked latent sales at Magnum Photos, a NEH-funded patent (Tagasauris, 2010), EU Horizon 2020 research (HyperTED), and an LSE public listing (SEEEN PLC, 2019).

Name

Tocarte

Legal name

Tocarte, LLC

Website

https://tocarte.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

1996

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

Tocarte is a solo consultancy practice that designs canonical data layers above existing commerce, CMS, and streaming platforms so specialty retail, hospitality, and founder-led businesses are coherently represented across search, ad, feed, and AI surfaces.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Semantic Infrastructure Consulting

NAICS

Computer Systems Design and Related Services (5415)

SIC

Services-Computer Programming, Data Processing, Etc. (7370), Services-Management Consulting Services (8742)

akta.pro industry

PRIMARYHDAEABAJ

Metadata, Catalog & Semantic Layer for Data Platforms

Hardware, Technology & Telecom/Enterprise Platforms & Databases/Data Warehousing, Lakehouse & Data Platforms

Keywords

• Semantic infrastructure consulting
• Canonical data layer design
• Structured data implementation
• AI discoverability optimization
• Multi-surface inventory audit

Headquarters

HQ city

New York

HQ country

United States

HQ region

North America

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales

Revenue model

1. Multi-Surface Inventory Audit: Two-week engagement with a structured deliverable including visual systems map, contradiction report, priority matrix, recommended canonical model, and remediation roadmap. This is the primary entry engagement for acquiring clients.
2. Canonical Data Layer Implementation: Design and build engagement for the governed data layer above existing platforms. Follows the audit engagement.
3. Continuous Optimization Services: Ongoing optimization loop maintaining the canonical layer current without manual intervention. Retainer or recurring engagement model.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels3 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Tocarte is a semantic infrastructure consulting practice that audits, designs, and implements a governed canonical data layer above a client's existing commerce, CMS, POS, and content platforms. The core offering is the Multi-Surface Inventory Audit — a two-week diagnostic that maps contradictions across six machine-readable surfaces (structured data, taxonomy, feeds, AI discoverability, SEO/AEO/GEO, and contradictions) and produces a remediation roadmap — followed by canonical layer build, surface conformity wiring, and an ongoing continuous optimization loop. The practice serves specialty commerce, hospitality, and founder-led businesses with AI-native implementation positioned at lower cost than traditional infrastructure consultancies.

Product overview

Tocarte operates as a semantic infrastructure practice offering consulting and implementation services centered on a five-stage engagement ladder. The core offering is the Multi-Surface Inventory Audit, a two-week diagnostic that maps contradictions across all machine-readable surfaces. This feeds into the Canonical Data Layer Implementation—designing and building a governed layer above existing platforms (Shopify, Lightspeed, WordPress) that serves as one source of truth for all downstream surfaces. The Surface Conformity Wiring service connects existing surfaces (Google, ad stack, AI discovery platforms) to read from this canonical source. The Continuous Optimization Loop provides ongoing maintenance without manual intervention. The practice specializes in structured data services (JSON-LD, schema markup), taxonomy consistency (IAB standards), and AI discoverability optimization. The methodology scales from specialty retail (250+ products) to CTV streaming (8M+ monthly users), targeting specialty commerce, hospitality, and founder-led businesses—not just enterprise clients.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• Multi-Surface Inventory Audit

Quantifiable outcome

• $20M in latent print sales unlocked by reconciling 10M archive prints to known metadata
• +3 more outcomes

Named customers3 records

Segments4 records

Ideal customer profiles4 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration17 records

AI capability6 records

Feature6 records

Partnerships

One partnership is on record.

• Sinclair Broadcasting (STIRR acquisition)flagshipOthers · 1 January 2024STIRR acquired from Sinclair Broadcasting in 2024. STIRR serves 8M+ monthly users across 70+ local news stations. Full canonical data layer running in production. This is the most advanced proof of the methodology, demonstrating the practice's approach at production scale.

Scale indicators6 records

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights2 records

Broad incumbents

• Collibra: Collibra is a data intelligence and governance platform for enterprise data catalogs, metadata management, and data quality. It addresses the 'canonical data layer' concept at enterprise data scale, providing a much broader and more productized alternative to Tocarte's bespoke semantic infrastructure approach.
• Conductor: Conductor is an enterprise SEO and content intelligence platform that helps brands optimize organic search performance. It overlaps with Tocarte's continuous optimization and discovery surface work as a software-led incumbent serving large content and commerce teams.
• Yext: Yext operates a digital presence platform that manages structured entity data across search engines, maps, voice assistants, and AI surfaces. It competes in the same conceptual space — canonical entity management for machine-readable surfaces — but at enterprise scale as a software vendor rather than a consulting practice.
• Botify: Botify is an enterprise technical SEO platform that includes structured data, crawl, and content optimization capabilities. It is a broader incumbent that overlaps with Tocarte's audit and continuous optimization services but delivers them as a SaaS platform rather than as bespoke semantic infrastructure consulting.
• BrightEdge: BrightEdge is an enterprise SEO and content performance platform with data-driven content optimization and structured data capabilities. It is a broader incumbent that addresses the SEO/AEO/GEO portions of Tocarte's audit through a SaaS product sold to large marketing organizations.
• Alation: Alation is a data catalog platform that creates a governed source of truth for enterprise data assets. It competes conceptually with Tocarte's canonical data layer thesis at the enterprise data infrastructure level, though focused on analytics data rather than commerce and content surfaces.

Others

• Similarweb: Similarweb is a digital intelligence platform that provides web traffic, search, and AI-surface analytics. It is an adjacent provider that supports the diagnostic and benchmarking portions of Tocarte's audit work, but does not deliver semantic infrastructure implementation services.

Direct peers

• Schema App: Schema App is a structured data management platform and services firm specializing in schema.org and JSON-LD implementation at enterprise scale. It competes most directly with Tocarte's Structured Data and Surface Conformity offerings for clients that need a software-enabled approach to canonical schema management.
• Feedonomics: Feedonomics is a product feed management platform that optimizes and distributes product data to Google Merchant, Amazon, Meta, and hundreds of other channels. It directly addresses the 'feed conformity' and 'multi-surface' portions of Tocarte's audit, making it a direct functional peer for commerce clients.
• GoDataFeed: GoDataFeed is a product feed optimization and management platform for multi-channel commerce. It serves the same feed conformity and product data layer problem Tocarte addresses for SMB and mid-market commerce clients, with overlapping integrations to Shopify, Google, and Amazon.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• LinkedInlinkedin.com/in/toddcarter1

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Tocarte