Press Release
Bold Commerce Raises $27M to Enable Commerce Anywhere; Turning Every Interaction With a Brand Into a Shoppable Moment
January 19, 2021
OMERS Ventures Leads Series B Round as the Retail Technology Company Surpasses $1B in GMV Processed; Whitecap Venture Partners and Round 13 Capital Reinvest
AUSTIN, Texas & WINNIPEG, Manitoba
Bold Commerce, the ecommerce technology company that powers anywhere commerce for the world’s leading omnichannel retailers and emerging DTC brands, today announced the close of its $27 million USD ($35 million CAD) Series B funding round. The round was led by OMERS Ventures, a transatlantic fund that specializes in growth-oriented and disruptive technology companies, and whose Partner Laura Lenz will join Bold Commerce’s Board of Directors. Current Bold Commerce investors Whitecap Venture Partners and Round 13 Capital also invested in the round. The new investment brings Bold Commerce’s total equity funding to $44 million USD ($57 million CAD) in two years.
Funding to Power Transactions Anywhere That Shoppers Interact with Brands
As retail brands reimagine the experiences they want to offer their shoppers--not only across their retail channels, but throughout their everyday digital interactions--brands’ ambitions are outpacing what their technology stack can deliver.
Bold Commerce currently works with more than 90,000 brands in over 170 countries. Its modular suite of checkout, subscriptions and price rules solutions extend ecommerce platform capabilities for leading omnichannel retailers like Vera Bradley, Harry Rosen, Staples Canada, as well as emerging DTC brands, such as Pharell Williams’ Humanrace and Pepsi’s Game Fuel.
With the funding, Bold Commerce advances its ability to cater to brands’ growing demand for “headless” commerce giving brands the ability to create almost any transaction experience imaginable. Bold Commerce believes within 6 months, it’s platform-agnostic solution will enable commerce to any touchpoint along the customer journey.
“Wherever brands and shoppers interact, Bold will be able to turn that into a shoppable moment,” said Yvan Boisjoli, Co-Founder and CEO of Bold Commerce. “Our goal is to enable retailers and brands to convert shoppers at their highest point of interest, and increasingly that goes beyond the online shopping cart or in-store sales terminal to include product pages, social channels, in store kiosks , connected IOT devices, voice commerce and more.”
OMERS Ventures’ investment in the company is validation of the company’s vision to orchestrate better transaction experiences for brands and a nod to Bold Commerce’s growth since its Series A funding round in January 2019.
OMERS Ventures currently has a diverse portfolio of active companies, including Hopper, Wattpad, TouchBistro, DuckDuckGo, Crunchbase and HootSuite, with successful exits including Shopify, PasswordBox and Wave.
“Bold’s ‘Own Your Commerce’ vision to power seamless, customized transaction experiences is an untapped opportunity in the future of commerce.” said Laura Lenz, Partner at OMERS Ventures and newly appointed member of Bold Commerce’s Board of Directors. “Retailers have recognized the importance of having ecommerce solutions that are customizable to their brand and no one does that better than Bold today. We are excited to be part of the company’s growth story.”
Scaling Operations and Expanding Its Partner Marketplace
Beyond technological advances, Bold Commerce will be investing in its operations and partner marketplace. The company has hired Odus (Boogie) Wittenburg as Chief Operating Officer (COO). Wittenburg was formerly President at Q2 Holdings, a publicly traded SaaS company in the financial services sector, and previously led the Americas business unit at Rackspace.
Bold Commerce will be hiring more than 100 new team members in Austin, Winnipeg and across North America in key software engineering, sales, marketing, and partnership roles.
And in 2021, the company will be expanding its network of payments, tax, fraud, order fulfillment and marketing partners into a comprehensive marketplace of plug-ins and pre-built integrations that solve for every aspect of the transaction experience. Currently Bold Commerce has 50+ technology partners including companies such as Stripe, Paypal, Vertex and Klaviyo.
About Bold Commerce
Bold Commerce is powering anywhere commerce for brands by delivering high-converting, customizable transaction experiences. The company works with leading omnichannel retailers like Vera Bradley, Harry Rosen and Staples Canada, and emerging DTC brands, such as Pharell Williams’ Humanrace and Pepsi’s Game Fuel, to reimagine commerce. Its proprietary suite of modular checkout, subscriptions and price rules solutions is compatible with multiple ecommerce platforms and headless architectures. Bold Commerce has been named to Deloitte’s Tech Fast 50, E&Y’s Entrepreneur of the Year, and CBInsights’ Retail Tech 100.
About OMERS and OMERS Ventures
Founded in 1962, OMERS is one of Canada’s largest defined benefit pension plans, with CAD$109 billion in net assets as at December 31, 2019. OMERS Ventures currently manages CAD$2 billion and has made more than 50 investments in disruptive technology companies across North America and Europe. www.omersventures.com.