Making the Economics of Ecommerce Work

July 29 2020

E-commerce is a large and global market that continues to expand as brands and retailers continue to increase their online sales. However, it is also an increasingly complex and fragmented market due to the hundreds of channels available to brands and retailers and the rapid pace of change and innovation across those channels. Historically, a brand or retailer might have simply established an online storefront and used a basic paid search program to drive traffic to its website. Today, in order to gain consumers' attention in a more crowded and competitive online marketplace, an increasing number of brands and many retailers sell their merchandise through multiple online channels, each with its own rules, requirements, and specifications. In addition, brands and retailers often seek to sell their products in multiple countries, each with its own local consumer preferences and behaviors.

Several significant trends have contributed to this increasing complexity and fragmentation, including the emergence and growth of online third-party marketplaces, the mainstream adoption of mobile devices for e-commerce, and the increase in brands' participation in direct-to-consumer e-commerce. These changes in the industry have created a more dynamic and logistically challenging landscape for retail brands. With more platforms and options, the complexity of managing an online presence has increased.

The fragmentation and increasing complexity of e-commerce channels are placing greater demands on brands and retailers that seek to grow their online sales. These brands and retailers require solutions that will enable them to easily integrate their product offerings and inventory across multiple online channels.

However, a new industry has emerged in the face of these challenges. The ecommerce management industry provides solutions that allow retailers to more easily integrate, manage, and optimize their online sales across hundreds of available channels through a single, integrated platform. Using a cloud-based platform, retailers can connect to multiple, disparate channels through a single, user-friendly solution instead of separately integrating with each channel to optimize operations for peak performance and gain actionable analytics to improve competitiveness.

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Ecommerce Management Startups:

ChannelAdvisor is a leading provider of cloud-based solutions to e-commerce companies. They have simplified the process of selling across multi-channel platforms much the same way as a single TV signal broadcasts to millions of viewers on different channels. The system also captures and measures all the performance data from each channel, enabling the improvement of future strategies. It has become the go-to tool for full-service marketing agencies who work with Enterprise e-commerce clients.

Tradeswell was founded in 2019 by Geoff Kenawell, Haley Ulloa, Jesse Leikin, Paul Palmieri, and Ron Puggi. Tradeswell headquarters are located in Baltimore, Maryland. Tradeswell is on a mission to fix the economics of e-commerce while unlocking profitable, healthy growth for brands. We know that both traditional and DTC brands need tools and intelligence that places the power of data science at their fingertips. Tradeswell raised a $3.3M seed round of funding in early June, led by SignalFire, and joined by Grit Capital Partners, Construct Capital, Palmieri Ventures Holdings LLC, Acta Capital, and Alan MacIntosh, and Mark McDowell of Real Ventures.

CommerceIQ, the leader in eCommerce Channel Optimization, launched a fully managed omnichannel advertising service powered by CommerceIQ’s Machine Learning (ML) and automation platform and delivered by ecommerce experts and data scientists. The CommerceIQ Advertising Managed Service ushers in a new approach to ecommerce advertising that moves beyond typical advertising strategies that only focus on optimizing return on advertising spend (ROAS), and instead focuses on using advertising to drive profitable market share growth.

Yaguara provides eCommerce companies with a connected operations platform that aggregates and aligns disparate data (from Google Ads, Shopify, Klaviyo, among others) with business objectives and their related projects in order to create cross-functional alignment and understanding across the organization. From there, it provides AI-powered insights to enable users to make decisions.

Skubana is a distributed order management platform powering fulfillment, inventory, and business intelligence for brands looking to achieve multi-channel profitability. Skubana synchronizes data from sales channels, warehouses, 3PLs, POS systems, and more so merchants can stay focused on providing the best customer experience. It seamlessly integrates all products, fulfillment centers, and sales channels in one platform, whether it's selling DTC, through wholesale, or marketplaces.

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The German developer of mRNA medicines (including a COVID-19 vaccine), filed for a $100 million IPO. It plans to list on the Nasdaq (CVAC) with BofA as lead underwriter.
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Since last week, PrivCo has added:
765 Profile Updates | 169 M&A Deals | 167 Funding Activities

Funding & Deal Highlights:

CyCognito raises $30 million in Series B funding.
CyCognito will utilize the funding to take advantage of its lead and unique position in identifying the externally-exposed systems and digital assets that are either unknown, uncontrolled or abandoned, but present the biggest business risks to an organization.

Kalytera Therapeutics, Inc. announced today that on and effective July 22, 2020, it has closed in escrow its previously announced non-brokered private placement (the “Private Placement”) of units comprised of common shares (“Shares”) and one half common share purchase warrants (“Warrants”) in the capital of the Company in the number of gross proceeds of $317,970.49 from the issuance of 21,198,033 Shares and 10,599,017 Warrants.

Renalytix AI plc, an artificial intelligence-enabled in vitro diagnostics company, focused on optimizing clinical management of kidney disease to drive improved patient outcomes and lower healthcare costs, announces that the underwriters of its global offering of new ordinary shares, comprising American Depositary Shares (“ADSs”) and ordinary shares (the “Global Offering”), have exercised, in part, their over-allotment option.

Ardent Privacy, a Maryland-based data privacy company, announced that it received a $200,000 investment from TEDCO’s latest $800,000 funding round. TEDCO identifies, invests in, and helps grow technology companies in Maryland.

Moderna Therapeutics said Sunday that BARDA is injecting another $472 million in investment into the company to support its late-stage trial — set to begin Monday — of a potential vaccine for the Covid-19 coronavirus.

Ro, the digital telehealth company that operates Roman, Rory, and Zero, has raised $200M in Series C funding from investors that include General Catalyst, FirstMark Capital, Torch Capital, SignalFire, TQ Ventures, Initialized Capital, 3L, BoxGroup, and The Chernin Group to become New York's newest unicorn. Founded by Rob Schutz, Saman Rahmanian, and Zachariah Reitano in 2017, Ro has now raised a total of $376.1M in reported equity funding.

WhizAI, the first and only purpose-built cognitive insights platform for the life sciences, today announces $4 million in seed funding led by Healthy Ventures, with participation from Bling Capital, Firebolt Ventures and existing investors. This investment brings the total raised by the company to over $6.5 million.

Geltor, the company which made a name for itself with its animal-free collagen, has raised $91.3 million in series B funding to fuel the expansion of its ingredients-as-a-service platform.

Pure Acquisition Corp., an oil and gas exploration and production focused special purpose acquisition entity, today announced that it has amended its business combination agreement with, among others, HighPeak Energy, Inc. and certain affiliates of HighPeak Energy Partners, LP (the “HighPeak Funds”) to finalize the merger consideration for those Pure stockholders who participate in the business combination.

Otelco Inc., a wireline telecommunication services provider in Alabama, Maine, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire, Vermont, and West Virginia, announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by affiliates formed by Oak Hill Capital ("Oak Hill"), a private equity firm, for $11.75 per share in cash, which represents an equity purchase price of $40.6 million and an enterprise value of $105.6 million.

Metamorphosis Partners LLC, a leading Full-Service Pet Marketing Agency and Pet Venture Studio, announced that it has acquired Barkly (barklypets.com), for an undisclosed sum. Barkly Pets is an award-winning digital marketplace and platform for pet care professionals to manage and grow their businesses.

Thompson Street Capital Partners (TSCP), a private equity firm based in St. Louis, announced today that it has completed the sale of Analytical Lab Group (ALG), industry-leading microbiology and viral lab, to Element Materials Technology (Element), one of the world’s largest providers of materials and product qualification testing, inspection and certification services to the global aerospace, transportation & industrials, connected technologies, energy, and fire & building products sectors.

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