Universal Commerce API Startup Rutter Nets $27M to Build ‘Plaid for Commerce’

Rutter, which is building a universal commerce API, has raised $27 million in a Series A funding round, a press release said Tuesday (March 15).

Rutter’s beginnings included pioneering a universal eCommerce API last year. This year it’s planning to debut universal APIs for accounting systems and payment processors, to help companies read and write data from various commerce platforms.

The new round of funding will allow the company to build more of the data infrastructure layer to power all commerce, while continuing to support FinTech and eCommerce enablement companies, building for merchants and smaller companies.

Rutter says its work assists companies integrating with commerce platforms and accessing financial data points to underwrite merchants and smaller companies, along with launching in new places and streamlining inventory syncing.

Peter Zhou, co-founder and CEO, said there’s likely a “massive” opportunity to power the commerce enablement system.

“Working hand in hand with other fast-moving companies pushes us to grow our product the fastest,” he said. “Our goal is to be the glue that connects all of the commerce tools, platforms and products out there to all of the merchants and SMBs they would want to enable and support.”

Read more: U.S. Consumers Made $1.7T in Pandemic eCommerce Purchases

PYMNTS wrote that eCommerce is big, with U.S. customers spending $1.7 trillion online from March 2020 to February this year, according to stats from Adobe.

That included an $885 billion figure from 2021, an 8.9% increase year over year.

Online inflation has increased for 21 consecutive months, with $22 billion in eCommerce growth in 2021 tied to higher prices.

The report also went into more specific stats – such as that 41.8% of overall eCommerce comes from groceries, electronics and apparel, and groceries represent 8.9% of the overall spending in 2021, at $79.2 billion.

Consumers reportedly spend an average of $6.7 billion per month for groceries, an increase from $3.1 billion before the start of the pandemic.