E-commerce software provider eCommera Ltd. has raised $41 million in a Series C funding round, it announced this week. The funds will enable it to build out the second generation of its Decision Intelligent Commerce software for retailers to sell and fulfill from anywhere, it says. The round will also help eCommera, which is based in London and has mostly European clients, to expand internationally, particularly in North America, according to CEO Andrew McGregor.
“We see significant global opportunity as retailers adopt new software and systems to command the next generation experiences and operations,” he says. ECommera is focused on helping retailers that sell from multiple locations, such as stores, online and mobile, to grow their sales and customer bases worldwide, he says. “We began by assembling a team who pioneered the retail, big data analytics and technology industries.”
In 2012, eCommera also hired John Squire, former head of IBM Coremetrics, a web analytics technology provider, to lead its U.S. expansion. “We’ve built an application that connects and analyzes product and customer data throughout your business,” Squire says. For example, eCommera might alert a retailer that its e-mail campaign isn’t converting because it doesn’t offer the featured products in enough sizes, or that many shoppers are returning a dress because it is sized incorrectly, he says. “It then tells you how much profit each of these actions is worth if you address it,” Squire says. ”Retailers find that on their own, it is really difficult to understand that connection between marketing, inventory and operations.”
Investment firm Dawn Capital led the financing round along with West Coast Capital, Frog Capital, ePlanet Capital, WPP and new investor Wti, eCommera says.
“We have reached a tipping point as bricks-and-mortar retailers aggressively rise to the challenge from pure online players,” says Norman Fiore, managing partner at Dawn Capital. “ECommera impressed us with their game-changing technology that enables retailers to increase profitability and deliver compelling customer experiences from first touchpoint to final fulfillment.”
ECommera provides software-as-a-service, or software hosted over the Internet—also known as in “the cloud”—which a retailer accesses by logging in online. That differs from more traditional software deployments in which a retailer licenses software to install and run on its own servers. This past summer, eCommera purchased Canada-based order management technology provider OrderDynamics Corp., which also provides Internet-hosted software for retailers to manage their orders across the web and stores.
In the United States, eCommera offers only OrderDynamics and one of its other software products so far, Squire says. That product is DynamicAction, which provides profit analysis recommendations across a retailer’s business. All eCommera’s software is priced on a subscription basis according to the volume of a retailer’s web transactions, he says. For DynamicAction, he says annual fees “start in the low six figures for retailers transacting tens of millions online each year,” and scales up for retailers selling billions online annually.
70 retailers and brands in 32 countries use eCommera’s software to sell online, in stores and via the mobile web, the vendor says. They include U.K. grocery chain Asda, No. 14 in the 2013 Europe 500 and U.K. department store chain House of Fraser Stores Ltd., No. 100, as well as U.S. department store The Neiman Marcus Group Inc., No. 39 in the 2013 Top 500 Guide; U.S. menswear retailer Brooks Brothers, No. 163; and U.S. dinnerware retailer Lifetime Brands, No. 391. In 2013, the vendor added 20 new clients worldwide, it says. It has had a three-year compound annual growth rate of 46%.