GGV Capital leads $30 mln funding in payment platform BigCommerce: CORRECTED

Silicon Valley and China-based GGV Capital led a $30 million financing in BigCommerce, an ecommerce platform for mid-size online retailers. All of BigCommerce’s existing investors, including Stephen Schambach, founder and former chairman of Demandware, also participated. Jeff Richards, managing partner at GGV Capital, will join BigCommerce’s board of directors.

(Correction: A prior version of this story stated that BigCommerce is a payment processing platform for online merchants. It is not. BigCommerce is an ecommerce platform for mid-size online retailers. The story has been changed.)

Press Release

BigCommerce is a leading SaaS provider for merchants running an online business, and has processed more than $9 billion in sales through its platform. Each month, thousands of merchants set up shop on BigCommerce, and more than 1,000 partners offer their software and services on the BigCommerce Marketplace. According to Morgan Stanley research, the ecommerce software platform addressable market is more than $10 billion annually with 10 million merchants in Western markets and 46 million globally. Additionally, Gartner reports that the market for cloud ecommerce enablement software and services reached $7.7 billion in 2015, and is expected to grow to $10 billion in 2018.

“BigCommerce is benefitting from the retail industry shifting online, with every small, mid-sized and large merchant in the world seeking to gain a piece of the $1 trillion ecommerce market,” said Brent Bellm, CEO of BigCommerce. “This new financing follows on the successful launch of several new products, our partnerships with major players in ecommerce like eBay and Square, and our successful expansion into the midmarket.”

The round was led by GGV Capital, a Silicon Valley and China-based investment firm with a major focus on both software and ecommerce, having also backed companies like Alibaba, Houzz, Square, Slack and Domo. Managing partner at GGV Capital Jeff Richards will join the BigCommerce board of directors. The round also included participation from all existing investors, including Stephan Schambach, founder and former chairman of Demandware.

“We believe we are still in the early innings of a massive global shift from offline to online retail, with mobile and younger demographics driving the trend,” said Jeff Richards. “BigCommerce and its competitors have brought hundreds of thousands of merchants online in the past few years, but there are millions left to come online – and today’s shopper shops online first.”

The funding follows several milestones for the company during the last 12 months:

• Brent Bellm joined as CEO. Bellm was formerly COO of Homeaway, a leading online travel platform that was acquired by Expedia for $3.8 billion. Prior to Homeaway, Bellm was with eBay, PayPal and McKinsey.
• Leading brands have joined the BigCommerce platform, including category-leading companies such as Camelbak and Toyota. Additionally, since it was launched in May 2015, thousands of mid-market brands have adopted BigCommerce Enterprise to power their online businesses.
• Following the one year anniversary of its Zing acquisition in April 2015, the company has successfully integrated its point of sale, multichannel and payment technology with best-in-class commerce partners including Square, eBay, Facebook and Pinterest, and shipped 130 new features to customers during the past 12 months.
• In Q1, BigCommerce launched the Stencil development framework and a suite of new themes, allowing developers and customers greater flexibility and customization than ever before to build beautiful, intuitive stores on the platform. Since launch, hundreds of retailers have relaunched their store with a new theme hosted within the Stencil development environment, including fashion designer LaQuan Smith, Saint Heron by Solange Knowles and GolfEtail.
• BigCommerce opened two new offices during 2015, including an expanded presence in San Francisco and a second office in Austin, to house the expanding product and engineering teams.

About BigCommerce

BigCommerce is the leading ecommerce platform for fast-growing and mid-market brands. According to analysis conducted by market research firm Ipsos, online stores built on BigCommerce grow approximately twice as fast as the ecommerce industry average. BigCommerce’s cloud-based platform enables merchants such as Dorco, Gibson, Martha Stewart, Saint Heron, Toyota and Travelpro to cost-effectively grow their businesses with more traffic, higher conversion and superior performance. BigCommerce supports clients from its headquarters in Austin, Texas, and offices in San Francisco and Sydney. For more information, visit BigCommerce.com.

About GGV Capital

GGV Capital is a venture capital firm based in Silicon Valley and China that has been successfully partnering with leading technology entrepreneurs since 2000. The firm was founded with the unique idea to have one team investing in both China and the U.S., the two largest economies in the world. With $3.8 billion under management across 8 funds, the GGV portfolio includes Airbnb, Alibaba, AlienVault, Appirio, BlueKai, Boxed, Buddy Media, Chukong, Curse, Diandian Yangche, Didi Chuxing, Domo, Douguo, DraftKings, Endeca, EHANG, FlightCar, Flipboard, Grab, Glu Mobile, HotelTonight, Houzz, IWJW, Keep, Kingsoft WPS, Light Chaser Animation, Meilishuo, MediaV, Misfit, Musical.ly, Nimble Storage, Niu, OpenDoor, Pactera, Pandora Media, Percolate, Quixey, Qunar, Reebonz, Slack, SmartMi, SoundCloud, Square, SuccessFactors, Synack, Tile, Tujia, UCWeb, Wish, Xiaohongshu, Xiaozhan, YingYing, Youku Tudou, YY, Zendesk, Zepp Labs, Zimi, 1More, 21Vianet, and 51credit. For more information, visit www.ggvc.com and follow GGV Capital on Twitter (@GGVCapital) and WeChat (GGVCapital).