Bigcommerce, a provider of e-commerce software that plans to go public, has appointed as CEO former PayPal executive Brett Bellm who helped lead online vacation rental service HomeAway.com Inc. through its own initial public offering of stock.
The company, which says it has 95,000 online retailer clients, also announced today that Bigcommerce co-founder Eddie Machaalani will give up the CEO post and become executive chairman of the board. Machaalani said in February that the company aims to go public.
Bigcommerce, which launched in 2009 in Sydney, Australia, operates U.S. offices in Austin, Texas, and San Francisco. Bigcommerce has raised $125 million from investors.
Bellm has been with HomeAway since 2010 as president and chief operating officer. HomeAway went public in 2011 and now has a market value of just under $3 billion. From 2005-9 Bellm was CEO of PayPal Europe.
“Brent shares in Bigcommerce’s vision to democratize commerce for high-growth brands that are challenging the giants in their industries,” Machaalani says. “Brent is the right leader to oversee our next stage of growth and ensure we are meeting the needs of today’s merchants and building a premium platform.”
Primarily a provider of e-commerce software for smaller e-retailers, Bigcommerce has in recent months used its funding to introduce a version for larger merchants and beef up its executive team. Bigcommerce provides e-commerce platform software to five retailer clients in Internet Retailer’s Top 1000, with one in the 2015 Internet Retailer Top 500 and four in the 2015 Second 500.
“In just six years, Bigcommerce has grown from a small, relatively unknown company to a recognized leader and disrupting force in commerce,” Bellm says. “I have been serving offline and online retailers, with a focus on small- and mid-sized ones, for 20 years. Bigcommerce is the right platform at the right time and place to power these merchants and drive business results.”
Competing e-commerce software provider Shopify conducted a successful IPO last month, raising $131 million at an initial price of $17 per share. The stock now trades at $27 a share, giving Shopify a market value of just over $2 billion. Shopify provides e-commerce software to six retailers in the Internet Retailer Top 1000.
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