BigCommerce raises $84 million

Internet Retailing

26th Apr 2018

BigCommerce has closed a US$64 million ($84 million) funding round led by Goldman Sachs, with participation from current investors General Catalyst, GGV Capital and Tenaya Capital, bringing the Australian-born e-commerce platform’s total funding to more than US$200 million.

“The overwhelming interest we received for this round further validates our belief that the future of e-commerce is powered by [software-as-a-service],” Russell Klein, chief development officer for BigCommerce, said.

“We look forward to leveraging Goldman Sachs’ considerable resources and expertise.”

The capital raise follows a series of moves in recent months to expand and strike new strategic partnerships with leading commerce and technology platforms.

In March, BigCommerce expanded its collaboration with Instagram to enable shopping on Instagram for more than 60,000 businesses using the platform, and in January, it entered into a strategic partnership with Handshake, enhancing support for B2B brands selling online.

Earlier this year, BigCommerce also became the first e-commerce platform to natively support Akamai Image Manager and Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages to improve mobile performance and conversions.

BigCommerce CEO Brent Bellm the injection of new capital will help the platform to continue to keep pace with the rapidly evolving e-commerce sector.

“E-commerce is constantly evolving, and brands need technologies that allow them to stay current and competitive,” Bellm said.

“With this funding, we will continue investing aggressively in our platform, technology and team to serve customers’ needs at every phase of their growth.”

Founded by Eddie Machaalani and Mitch Harper (pictured above) in Australia in 2009, BigCommerce provides shopping capabilities to more than 60,000 businesses across 120 countries.

To date, businesses selling on the platform have processed more than US$17 billion in sales. The business is now based in Austin, Texas, in the US.

“We are excited to partner with Brent and the BigCommerce team,” said Holger Staude, Goldman Sachs’ vice president of private capital investing.

“BigCommerce is an acknowledged leader in [software-as-a-service] e-commerce for the mid-market, and given its track record and scale we see tremendous opportunity for continued growth.”