Commerce Layer closed a $16m Series B funding round led by Coatue Management, with participation from existing investors Benchmark and Mango Capital.
In conjunction with the investment, Coatue general partner Caryn Marooney – who led the communications strategies of tech players including Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Salesforce.com, VMware, and many more as co-founder of The Outcast Agency – joined the firm’s board of directors.
Commerce Layer, which provides a set of APIs for businesses to build e-commerce apps with their own, customised front ends, will be using to continue expanding its business and adding more commerce tools into its API library.
Commerce Layer will also expand its team in both Europe and the US. To add on the firm plans to roll out brand new features such as a new developer dashboard, a command-line interface and order management system, and a hosted checkout application, metrics API, a reporting application, and better support for subscription and marketplace models.
Currently, Commerce Layer provides tools to build mobile, wearable and voice apps, point of sale solutions, subscriptions and multi-vendor commerce models, along with services like building shopping carts and turning print catalogues into interactive, shoppable digital experiences.
The funding comes at a time when more consumers flocked to digital channels after the Covid-19-induced global lockdown.
As a result, the company saw its revenues grow 6x in the last year. With only six customers on its books back in May 2020, it now has around 26 businesses using its tools including Chilly’s, Brioni, SumUp, Paradox Interactive and Coca-Cola Embonor – a company that works under a Coca-Cola license to make and distribute drinks in Chile and Bolivia.
Commenting on the impact of the pandemic on Commerce Layer, its CEO and co-founder Filippo Conforti said, “At this time last year, we were watching the world shut down due to COVID-19. As brick-and-mortar retail was coming to a halt, it was more critical than ever for us to be focused on growing and serving our customers, who were turning to ecommerce as a lifeline.
“As parts of the world are starting to reopen, we find ourselves in another period of change and growth.”
Commerce Layer is hardly the only headless commerce providers. There are a number of others now building tools to help companies build more unique e-commerce experiences, including the likes of Spryker, Swell, Fabric, Chord and Shogun. Even Shopify stepped into the fray with Shopify Plus.
Commenting on the growth in the sector, Marooney said, “eCommerce has become core to our everyday lives. As a result, big brands and enterprises need better ways to shift from retail and build exceptional online storefronts. We believe that Commerce Layer is building the API platform for this new category, and we’re incredibly proud to join them in pursuing their ambitious and exciting vision.”
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