HomeeCommerce NewsSalsify, an e-commerce building platform closes $155M funding amidst COVID-19 business surge

Salsify, an e-commerce building platform closes $155M funding amidst COVID-19 business surge

Salsify, a product content management, and syndication platform, which powers the seamless exchange of product content that powers today’s commerce experience has raised a significant round of funding amidst the COVID 19 pandemic.

The company has closed $155 million in a Series E round of financing led by Warburg Pincus, with Matrix, Underscore, Venrock, and Greenspring also participating.

Salsify was founded in late 2012 by a team with deep experience in commerce, online search, and the semantic web. It provides brands and the companies behind them a single place to track product inventories, manage how they are described and sold across a disparate array of online and offline locations, and then run analytics on the data to figure out what next steps to take.

Jason Purcell, the CEO who co-founded the company with Jeremy Redburn (Chief Data Officer) and Rob Gonzalez (CMO), said the company would not be disclosing its valuation but only confirmed that it was a “significant up round” compared to Salsify’s valuation in its last fundraise, which was $308 million, according to data from  Pitchbook.

Prior to now, Salsify had raised around $98 million from investors including Underscore, Matrix Partners, Venrock, and North Bridge Venture Partners.

The funding is coming on the back of a big 2020 for Salsify, which, like a lot of other companies working in the wider area of e-commerce, has seen strong demand for its expertise due to the COVID-19 pandemic as shopping habits went through a transformational shift and browsing and shopping online gained prominence,

“Companies realize they need a strong digital footprint,”. Whether it’s Amazon or another marketplace, or their own site, what COVID has done is give many brands a fraction of the thought process: if we don’t have a strong digital footprint, we won’t be able to engage.” Purcell said in an interview.

The company is tackling a very basic problem in the world of online commerce. It’s an extremely fragmented landscape, with a huge number of potential ways for a brand to connect with potential customers: their own sites, those of other retailers, larger marketplaces, social channels, direct sales using messaging or email, and much more.

And this is where its expertise comes. The name Salsify denotes a plant with linear leaves cultivated for its light-skinned edible root and herbal properties. Sounding philosophical, Purcell commented that Salsify might be known by some as a black root vegetable that looks a bit like a thin white carrot when peeled but with a sweet and mild taste. But it’s also a wildflower that is a bit like a dandelion: it grows everywhere and its blooms spread far and wide, a metaphor for the wide, fragmented world of online commerce.

This is, in fact, the rationale for the name of the company, too. He said he and the founders originally wanted to name the company “Dandelion” but it was taken, so Salsify it was.

The fact that it’s a wide-ranging problem also means that there has been a wide-ranging field of companies that have aimed to tackle it. They include companies like Contently and Sitecore, as well as the likes of Salesforce and Adobe, although Purcell describes his company as “complementary to marketing clouds.”

The company recently was enriched by the joining of Mike Milburn, about two weeks ago, formerly Salesforce’s chief customer officer,  now Salsify’s president. Salsify counts companies like Coca-Cola, Rubbermaid, and Mars among its customers.

In all, it has some 800 companies and brands on its large platter with 225 contributing to more than $1 billion in revenues, and since its last round, a Series D in 2018, the company has seen a boom in business, with a 120%+ net revenue retention rate.

Purcell said that his company plans to use the funding in two main areas. First, it plans to continue expanding its product stack, currently based around the company’s CommerceXM (for “experience management”) platform, which includes features for managing product information, digital assets and managing how products are sold through a brand’s own site, marketplaces, online and offline retailers and social channels and more.

Second, the company has ambitious plans for expanding internationally.

The company is based out of Boston, and a couple of years ago it opened its first international headquarters in Lisbon, Portugal.

Right now some 40 of its customers are based overseas, and the plan will be to double down on more expansion both serving them, as well as their U.S. customers abroad, as adding on to new business

Purcell also added that the round and the choice of the lead investor was very much in line with the company’s ambition to come out with an IPO.

“This is pointing us on the path to an IPO. The intent is to build a company that can operate as a public company. It’s about how we hold ourselves against public companies while making sure we can operate the same from a growth perspective. Warburg Pincus has taken 150 companies public, and we are building with that in mind.” He added.

Warburg Pincus has been a pretty prolific growth-stage investor whose involvement indeed points not to existing scale and success, but wider ambition. Other companies it has backed include CrowdStrike, Avalara, Samsara, Ant Group, Privitar, Trax, and Gojek.

Vishnu Menon, managing director, Warburg Pincus, said in a statement, “Salsify is a clear market leader, serving some of the largest and most discerning global brands and retailers. The company’s strong track record, paired with a talented leadership team has positioned it well for the increase in demand for digital shelf solutions.”

“We are excited to partner with Salsify in their mission to help brands develop better and longer-lasting relationships with consumers online,” said Michael Ding, vice president, Warburg Pincus.

James Miller
James Miller
I am passionate about technology and writing. I have 10+ years of experience in working with different digital media companies. If you have an interesting story, please feel free to send a mail to james@ecommercenext.org
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