INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
E-commerce now accounts for 14% of all retail sales, and its growth has led to a rise in the fortunes of startups that build tools to enable
businesses to sell online
their business to new markets with an end-to-end e-commerce service covering things like order and inventory management, front-end customer
more international markets.The investment is being led by SoftBank, specifically via its Latin American fund, with participation also from
Previous investors include Riverwood and Naspers; Riverwood continues to be a backer, the company said.Mariano Gomide, the CEO who
co-founded VTEX with Geraldo Thomaz, said the valuation is not being disclosed, but he confirmed that the founders and founding team
continue to hold more than 50% of the company
Annually, it processes some $2.4 billion in gross merchandise value across some 2,500 stores, growing 43% per year in the last five
operate and grow off its own balance sheet
Before now, it had raised less than $13 million, according to PitchBook data.This is one of the big rounds to come out of the relatively new
SoftBank Innovation Fund, an effort dedicated to investing in tech companies focused on Latin America
The fund was announced earlier this year at $2 billion and has since expanded to $5 billion
Other Latin American companies that SoftBank has backed include online delivery business Rappi, lending platform Creditas and property tech
for loans or to get a pizza delivered), and VTEX is positioned as a platform player that enables a lot of that to happen in the wider
marketplace, providing not just the tools to build a front end, but to manage the inventory, ordering and customer relations at the back
VTEX offers both, filling a gap in the market
VTEX has been expanding into markets like the United States (where it acquired UniteU earlier this year), the company still makes some 80%
of its revenues annually in Latin America, Gomide said in an interview.There, it has been a key partner to retailers and brands interested
in expanding into the region, providing integrations to localise storefronts, a platform to help brands manage customer and marketplace
relations, and analytics, competing against the likes of SAP, Oracle, Adobe and Salesforce (but not, he said in answer to my question,
Commercetools, which builds Shopify -style API tools for mid and large-sized enterprises and itself raised $145 million last
This, plus the benefit of analytics on a wider set of big data (another economy of scale play), are two of the big reasons VTEX is now
doubling down on growth in newer markets like Europe and North America
