OTTAWA, Canada — October 17, 2011— Shopify, a leading ecommerce platform used
to create and power online stores, today announced that it closed a $15 million Series B
growth investment from Bessemer Venture Partners, FirstMark Capital, Felicis Ventures,
and Georgian Partners. This new investment adds to the $7 million of Series A funding
received last year, providing a sizable balance to fund continued growth.
Tobias Lütke, Shopify’s CEO and co-founder, launched the company in 2006 after he
discovered how difficult it was to create a professional online store. Today, over 20,000
active online stores in 80 countries are powered by Shopify. Individuals, entrepreneurs,
and businesses use Shopify to setup and power their online stores. Shopify’s product is
known for its focus on ease of use, beautiful store designs, and scalability.
“The overwhelming majority of businesses are not yet selling online because the tools
available have historically been complex and expensive,” said Bessemer Venture
Partners’ Trevor Oelschig. “Shopify is working to change this by building beautiful
products that are easy for businesses to use. Shopify’s rapid growth and customer
success speaks to the power of Shopify’s platform and we are excited to be involved as
they continue to expand.”
“This large investment will allow us to aggressively expand operations with a focus on
three areas of growth. First, we’re looking to continue hiring the best developers and
designers in the world. Second, we would like to open the door to strategic partnerships
and acquisitions. Lastly, we will provide seed funding to developers looking to build apps
that integrate with the Shopify platform,” said Lütke.
With the announcement of the funding also comes the official launch of “The Shopify
Fund.” This $1 million dollar fund will be used to encourage and finance developers to
create ecommerce add-ons that plug into the Shopify platform. Nearly one hundred such
Apps have already been created by individuals, startups, and established businesses
like QuickBooks, MailChimp, Hubspot, and Olark. More information on The Shopify Fund
can be found at www.shopify.com/fund.
Shopify’s merchants span from budding entrepreneurs to major brands like Angry Birds,
General Electric, Tata, Tesla Motors, Amnesty International, DODOcase, CrossFit,
Evisu, LMFAO, Beastie Boys, and The Foo Fighters. “We looked at a number of different
ecommerce options, but Shopify made the most sense,” said Niklas Kari, Angry Birds’
Head of Retail, “We had strong recommendations from other partners, and setting up
the store was easy.” Rovio recently announced they have sold over 2 million Angry Birds
plush toys.
To learn more about Shopify, please visit www.shopify.com, and to join Shopify’s
growing team, check out www.shopify.com/careers.
Bessemer Venture Partners is a global venture capital firm with offices in Silicon Valley,
Cambridge,Mass., New York, Mumbai and Herzliya, Israel. One of the longest standing
venture capital practices in the United States, BVP has partnered as an active, hands-on
investor in Ciena, LinkedIn, Celtel, Blue Nile, Skype, Staples and Yelp. More than 100
BVP-funded companies have gone public on exchanges in Canada, India, the U.K. and
the United States.
BVP has participated in each successive wave of innovation in retail since the mid-
1980s, beginning with investments in big box retailers including Staples and The
Sports Authority and continuing into leading Internet retailers like Blue Nile and Quidsi,
which operates Diapers.com and Soap.com. BVP continues to invest in category-
leading companies that play into the growth of e-commerce, including Delivery
Agent, OneStop Internet, KupiVIP, Criteo and Convertro. For more information, please
visit www.bvp.com.
Bessemer Venture Partners Contact:
Ashley Gagnier
gagnier@bvp.com | 914-833-5357
Based in New York City, FirstMark Capital is an early stage venture capital firm investing
in visionary entrepreneurs who are creating new markets with innovative technology
solutions or fundamentally changing existing markets by applying a fresh approach
or new business model. FirstMark partners early in a company’s lifecycle, offering
deep industry insight, a broad network of relationships and the operational expertise to
build lasting businesses. Select historical investments include Riot Games (Acquired
by Tencent Holdings); Duck Creek Technologies (Acquired by Accenture); Netgear
(NASDAQ: NTGR); Boomi (Acquired by Dell); StubHub (Acquired by eBay); Netegrity
(Acquired by CA); OutlookSoft (Acquired by SAP); and Navic Networks (Acquired by
Microsoft). Current investments include: SecondMarket, Knewton, Pinterest, Shopify
and Lumos Labs. For more information, visit www.firstmarkcap.com.
FirstMark Capital Contact:
Danielle Hootnick
dhootnick@firstmarkcap.com | 212-792-2200
Felicis Ventures provides early stage funding to exceptional entrepreneurs
worldwide. Felicis Ventures’ portfolio encompasses over 60 companies including
Clearslide, Rovio, Shopify, Wildfire and Practice Fusion. In the last four years, 20
Felicis backed companies have been acquired by firms such as Google, Twitter,
Groupon, Microsoft, AT&T, Disney, Ebay, Chegg and Intuit. Founded in 2005, Felicis is
headquartered in Palo Alto, CA. For more information, visit www.felicisvc.com.
Felicis Ventures contact:
Sylvie Tongco, Atomic PR for Felicis Ventures
Sylvie@atomicpr.com | 415-593-1400
Georgian Partners is as growth equity firm investing in expansion stage enterprise
software, and information aggregation companies. Georgian Partners was founded by
successful entrepreneurs and technology executives, and is backed by a team with
deep operational experience. Georgian Partners is based in Toronto, Canada. For more
information, please visit www.georgianpartners.com.
Georgian Partners contact:
Justin LaFayette
jlafayette@georgianpartners.com| 416-571-7317
Shopify is an ecommerce platform that allows individuals and businesses to create awesome online stores. Shopify currently hosts over 50,000 active online retailers, including: Amnesty International, General Electric, Tesla Motors, LMFAO, Foo Fighters, Encyclopedia Britannica, Tata Group, Evisu Jeans, DODOcase, Penny Arcade, CrossFit, GitHub, Evernote, and Epic Meal Time. Shopify was founded in 2006 by two snowboarding enthusiasts who wanted to create a better way to sell their snowboards online. Shopify has received $22 million in Series A and B funding from Bessemer Venture Partners, FirstMark Capital, Felicis Ventures, and Georgian Partners. For more information, please visit http://www.shopify.com.
Shopify contact:
Mark Hayes, Public Relations
1-888-746-7439 x 755 | mark.hayes@shopify.com
You can access your new store below.