Ecwid Notches $42M In Funding For SMB eCommerce Technology

To democratize access to online commerce technology for small companies, Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) firm Ecwid has notched $42 million in a funding round led by Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital as well as PeakSpan Capital, according to an announcement.

Ecwid offers eCommerce technologies for small- to medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and lets them make a digital storefront.

Ecwid Founder and CEO Ruslan Fazylev said in the announcement, “High costs and complex technology have traditionally prevented the majority of small businesses from shifting their brick-and-mortar presence to digital. Ecwid is at the forefront of empowering small businesses to meet those challenges head-on. The support early on from Runa Capital as we spun Ecwid out of a previous eCommerce company, X-Cart, played a massive role in the expansion of our partner channels, and iTech Capital was an important player in funding further growth.”

The money will be used to buy out early-stage and past investors, in part, with the inclusion of ITech Capital and Runa Capital in addition to powering aggressive expansion and doubling staff.

Pete Chung, Morgan Stanley Expansion Capital’s managing director and head, will become a part of the eCommerce firm’s board of directors along with Phil Dur, PeakSpan Capital’s co-founder and managing partner.

Ecwid said in the announcement that it has signed up over 1.5 million SMBs in over 175 nations. The company also noted that it has experienced “significant growth over the past two years.” New client sign-ups doubled last year and jumped another 300 percent this quarter versus last year.

In separate news, new stores made on the Shopify platform rose 62 percent between March 13 and April 24 compared to the prior six weeks as the pandemic accelerates the transitions of shoppers to eCommerce. The company had said in an early May announcement that the growth was fueled by “the shift of commerce to online as well as by the extension of the free trial period on standard plans from 14 days to 90 days.”