With $60 mn in Series C, CommerceIQ to power next growth phase from India

CommerceIQ, which is a brainchild of former Amazon executive Guru Hariharan and helps companies bridge the analytics divide in ecommerce, is looking at India to power its next growth phase.  

On Tuesday, the Mountain View, California headquartered ecommerce management company announced closing a $60 million (Rs 445.6 crore) Series C funding round led by Insight Partners. Other participants included Trinity Ventures, Shasta Ventures, and Madrona Venture Group. The company has raised $81 million to date, per a statement. 

The fresh capital will be used to expand international presence and develop products to help clients grow on platforms such as Amazon, Walmart, Instacart and Target. CommerceIQ also intends to strengthen its team in India.  

CommerceIQ, which started its journey as Boomerang Commerce in 2012, is among SaaS firms seeing traction due to Covid-19 induced ecommerce boom across the world. The company offers machine learning and automation SaaS platform to help businesses improve their sales on ecommerce sites such as Amazon. 

Its clients include popular brands such as Kellogg’s, Nestle and Colgate-Palmolive among others. 

Why do brands, most with their own D2C platforms, pick a SaaS solution to optimize sales? It is because consumers scout ecommerce sites for best possible deals and visibility on these channels translates to profitability. 

According to a statement, CommerceIQ leverages machine learning, analytics and automations to optimise the e-commerce channel across supply chain, marketing and sales operations functions to win the consumer at the moment of purchase and drive profitable market share growth.   

India is an important part of the company’s operations. CommerceIQ, which has an office in Bengaluru and employs 100 people, will use the fresh capital to significantly scale its local operations with additional key hires in software and product development, data science and analytics, product operations and support. 

“The technology behind our award-winning platform was developed in India and our presence in the region is critical to sustaining our future growth. In the last two years in India alone, we have doubled our headcount and as we move forward, these operations will be a pillar of the overall growth of the company and our ability to deliver on our ambitious product roadmap. With such a talented and passionate team, we also expect India to be a cornerstone to our future market expansion into Asia-Pacific as a whole,” CEO Hariharan said. 

The company has 160 workers globally and aims to exit 2021 with 250 global employees. In India, it plans to reach 150 headcount, the company told TechCircle. 

“We’re delighted to support CommerceIQ’s mission of fueling their customers’ e-commerce successes,” Nikitas Koutoupes, managing director at Insight Partners who will be joining CommerceIQ’s board, said.  

 “It is not necessarily obvious that most of digital commerce is thriving through indirect channels, like Amazon, Walmart and the like, with only 15% occurring through brands’ direct efforts. CommerceIQ’s unique focus on indirect channels is helping large brands deliver on the metrics that matter and win the lion share of the e-commerce market in a post-pandemic world. We couldn’t be more excited to welcome CommerceIQ to the Insight portfolio,” Koutoupes added. 

 The Covid-19 pandemic is fueling the ecommerce sector, with India alone expected to see the industry touch $140 billion by 2025.