ECWID, arguably one of the most successful Russian startups of the past few years, announced today that it has secured $5 million from iTech Capital and Runa Capital, two major Moscow-based venture funds with global portfolios.
The startup will utilize the Series B funds to accelerate its already rapid growth, further developing its mobile and social commerce products and expanding its global distribution network.
ECWID’s multi-platform shopping cart widget enables merchants to easily create integrated online storefronts encompassing features of traditional e-commerce, mobile and social commerce sales.
“It is, in fact, a new breed of shopping cart software offering superior performance and flexibility. It is SaaS-based; lightning-fast; works with existing sites; takes less than five minutes to set up and is available in a free version. ECWID is the world’s only 100% AJAX shopping cart, that’s why it’s so fast and easy to use,” ECWID founder Ruslan Fazlyev said in an exchange last year with East-West Digital News.
The solution lets merchants operate multiple online stores on multiple sites simultaneously from a single control panel. Merchants are not locked into a single website and can easily create stores on any CMS (e.g., WordPress, Joomla, Drupal), sitebuilder (e.g., Yola, Wix, 1&1, Go Daddy), social media or blog – which ECWID presents as an important and distinctive advantage.
“A true sell-anywhere storefront”
Since its foundation in Ulyanovsk – 700 km east of Moscow – in 2010, ECWID has asserted itself as one of the leading players on the global e-commerce solutions market for small businesses. Currently being used by half a million merchants in 175 countries and in 45 languages, the solution has gained particularly strong traction on Facebook following its agreement with Payvment in early 2013.
“ECWID is popular because it is a true sell-anywhere storefront with universal integration on any online platform. This is the reason it has had stellar growth and profitability with a first round funding of just $1.5 million” in late 2011, says Gleb Davidyuk, managing partner of iTech Capital.
Davidyuk has now joined the ECWID board of directors.
“ECWID democratizes e-commerce because it goes along with the software ecosystem, rather than fighting against it, and can be used by merchants without IT support,” comments Dmitry Chikhachev, Runa Capital’s managing partner. “ECWID’s architecture is also so advanced and ‘light’ it pioneered social commerce, a first step in the distributed commerce trend: where multiple, synchronized online and offline storefronts are possible for merchants of any size.”
