Australia's Bigcommerce gets $50m growth equity round
SoftBank Capital, Telstra Ventures and American Express have led a Series D round of funding worth $50 million for Bigcommerce, an Australian e-commerce platform with a strong presence in the US. Existing investors General Catalyst and Revolution Growth also participated.
Bigcommerce offers design, order processing, analytics, mobile commerce and marketing services to small- and medium-sized enterprises. It is positioned as a one-stop-shop providing everything a company needs to launch, promote, manage and scale an online store. Bigcommerce supports more than 55,000 customers from offices in Sydney, San Francisco and Austin.
These customers, who pay $30-200 per month for Bigcommerce's services, are said to have accumulated $5 billion in total online sales, registering a 24% higher gross merchandise volume than their competitors. The company said that e-commerce ad a segment of the total retail market is growing 30% year-on-year and is expected to reach $2 trillion in sales in 2015.
The new funding will be used to invest in product development and sales and marketing in order to support expansion into new markets.
Last year Bigcommerce announced a partnership with Alibaba Group - in which SoftBank Corp. is a significant investor - to streamline product sourcing for merchants. Eddie Machaalani, co-founder and CEO of Bigcommerce, said in a statement that SoftBank will provide the company with inroads into Asian markets.
"With this new round of funding, we will continue to level the commerce playing field so that every merchant has the opportunity to build a compelling brand and scalable business to effectively compete with the largest players in their industry," he added.
Founded in Australia in 2003 as Interspire, a web-based software developer, the company transitioned into an e-commerce platform in 2009 and changed its name to Bigcommerce. General Catalyst provided $15 million in Series A funding in 2011 and a second round of $20 million the following year. Revolution Growth invested $40 million in July 2013.
More on Technology
Latest News
Asian GPs slow implementation of ESG policies - survey
Asia-based private equity firms are assigning more dedicated resources to environment, social, and governance (ESG) programmes, but policy changes have slowed in the past 12 months, in part due to concerns raised internally and by LPs, according to a...
Singapore fintech start-up LXA gets $10m seed round
New Enterprise Associates (NEA) has led a USD 10m seed round for Singapore’s LXA, a financial technology start-up launched by a former Asia senior executive at The Blackstone Group.
India's InCred announces $60m round, claims unicorn status
Indian non-bank lender InCred Financial Services said it has received INR 5bn (USD 60m) at a valuation of at least USD 1bn from unnamed investors including “a global private equity fund.”
Insight leads $50m round for Australia's Roller
Insight Partners has led a USD 50m round for Australia’s Roller, a venue management software provider specializing in family fun parks.