Mark Maples, from Angle Investing firm FLOODGATE has joined existing investor General Catalyst Partners in investing in Bigcommerce the Aussie founded e-commerce platform. This is the Series B (or second round of venture funding) and has secured $20 Million to help fund development, global sales and a brand overhaul.
Read here for our interview with the founders of Bigcommerce after their first round of funding.
“E-commerce is already booming and we’re really focusing on how to help our clients sell more while leveraging affordable online channels that drive qualified traffic,” said Eddie Machaalani, co-founder of Bigcommerce. “Small and medium businesses shouldn’t need a degree in design and web development to run a successful online store. They want it to be easy and intuitive. We’re radically simplifying the e-commerce experience, enabling the small business not just to compete with larger competitors, but win.”
Maples, an early investor of Twitter, has a large array of investments under his FLOODGATE company. “E-commerce is a $400 billion market growing at massive rates,” said Mike Maples. “Bigcommerce has the team and the platform to take a leadership position in a big way and we are very excited to be involved at this stage.”
The Series B round will fund accelerated product development for Bigcommerce as well as significant expansion of the sales and marketing teams. Bigcommerce has already doubled its global employee base in 2012 and plans to increase headcount by 70 percent over the next two years.
Bigcommerce is fuelling the online shopping boom, and now power nearly 30,000 stores. Previously it could cost an entrepreneur hundreds of thousands of dollars to set up an e-commerce store. With Bigcommerce it’s just $24.95 a month.
To expand globally will require more capital, if only for localised codes. However with a strong financial base, the founders Mitchell Harper and Eddie Machaalani should be able to expand with greater confidence.
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