New financing enables disruptive cloud-native, headless and API-first commerce platform to build on its success and drive further ambitious expansion plans in North America, Asia-Pacific and Europe
MUNICH (Germany) / DURHAM (USA), October 21, 2019 – commercetools, a leader in next-generation commerce software, today announced a $145M USD (€130 million) investment from global venture capital and private equity firm Insight Partners to support the company’s plans for further growth in the USA, Asia-Pacific and Europe.
Since the launch of its API commerce platform in 2013, Germany’s commercetools has aimed to disrupt the commerce software market. The company’s true cloud, headless and API-first commerce platform helps brands break away from restrictive legacy e-commerce software. Using the commercetools platform, brands are able to create more engaging and higher revenue-driven commerce experiences that are easier and quicker to build, grow and manage across any channel.
Rather than relying on increasingly outmoded software, brands, manufacturers and distributors are choosing our cloud-native and modern software platform to transform their digital commerce for today’s consumers. To answer this demand, we have built a strong and successful international business and this new investment will enable us to intensify the pace of our growth into the North American and Asia-Pacific markets, as well as leverage our success in Europe. The scale of this funding, combined with our tremendous strengths in technology and the quality of the team we are building, significantly furthers our ambition to become the number one commerce platform globally.
CEO and Co-Founder, commercetools
This new financing builds on the rapid growth of commercetools over the last 18 months. The company has opened new operations in the UK and Asia-Pacific and has built up a large and growing roster of clients including Audi, Bang & Olufsen, Carhartt WIP, and Yamaha.
As part of the deal, Richard Wells and Matt Gatto, seasoned software investors and Insight Partners Managing Directors will both join commercetools’ board of directors.
With a strong track record of investing in retail software leaders, we are excited to have the opportunity to invest in commercetools and help them scale up internationally. In our opinion commercetools represents the next wave of enterprise commerce software and has the potential to unlock powerful innovation and growth within the e-commerce sector.
Managing Director, Insight Partners
We are looking forward to partnering with commercetools and providing more than 20 years of software and operational insights and best practices to help them continue to scale.
Managing Director, Insight Partners
REWE Digital GmbH, which is part of the global retail and hospitality business REWE Group, remains a major shareholder and investor of commercetools. Jan Kunath, member of the executive board of REWE Group, said: “Over the last five years commercetools has grown under REWE digital from a start-up to a category leader in the enterprise commerce space. With Insight Partners we found the best partner to join with REWE digital to further support commercetools on its journey to market leadership.”
Insight Partners is a leading global venture capital and private equity firm investing in high-growth technology and software companies that are driving transformative change in their industries. Founded in 1995, Insight currently has over $20 billion of assets under management and has cumulatively invested in more than 300 companies worldwide. Insight’s mission is to find, fund, and work successfully with visionary executives, providing them with practical, hands-on growth expertise to foster long-term success. For more information on Insight and all its investments, visit www.insightpartners.com or follow @insightpartners on Twitter.
The REWE digital unit, created in 2014, is at the core of REWE Group’s digital transformation. All strategic and partly operative online activities of REWE Group are bundled at the Cologne Carlswerk site. REWE digital aims to become the leading provider of online solutions in all markets relevant to REWE Group. One of REWE digital’s most important tasks is to digitise food retail in Germany. As an additional alternative to the stationery business, customers can order their groceries online, which are then delivered to their homes fresh and chilled at the desired time. With its delivery service, REWE is setting a trend in online shopping and has become Germany’s No. 1 online supermarket for fresh food (IFH 2016). In addition, REWE digital develops omnichannel solutions together with the business units and is a driver of innovation topics. In addition to the location in Carlswerk with more than 600 employees, REWE digital operates nine Food Fulfilment Centres (FFC) with a total of more than 1,500 employees. Since the end of 2018, the technological FFC 2.0 in Cologne-Niehl, with a high degree of automation, has been a trendsetter in continental Europe. REWE digital also includes the specialist online shops ZooRoyal and Weinfreunde, which are also at the Cologne Mülheim premises.
The cooperatively organized REWE Group is one of the leading trade and tourism groups in Germany and Europe. In 2018, the company generated a total external turnover of around 61 billion euros. Founded in 1927, REWE Group operates with 360,000 employees in 22 European countries. The sales lines include REWE, REWE CENTER and BILLA as well as MERKUR and ADEG supermarkets and consumer stores, the discounter PENNY, the BIPA drugstores and the toom Baumarkt DIY stores. The company also operates convenience stores (REWE To Go) and the e-commerce activities REWE Lieferservice, Zooroyal, Weinfreunde and Kölner Weinkeller. Travel and tourism under the umbrella of DER Touristik Group includes the tour operators ITS, Jahn Reisen, Dertour, Meiers Weltreisen, ADAC Reisen, Kuoni, Helvetic Tours, Apollo und Exim Tours and more than 2,400 travel agencies (e.g. DER Reisebüro, DERPART and cooperation partners), the hotel chains lti, Club Calimera, Cooee, PrimaSol and Playitas Resort and the direct tour operator clevertours.com.