Less than two years after its initial launch, Cart.com, a rising star in the booming e-commerce space, has scored a big chunk of fresh funding. Totaling $240 million, the round comprises new equity and debt funding, and follows several months of rapid growth.
Originally based in Houston, Cart.com moved its headquarters to Austin in December, shortly after raising a massive $98 million Series B round. At the time, the startup attributed the move to the city’s stable of “iconic brands,” claiming “there is no better place than Austin for a brand-obsessed company like Cart.com to plant its flag” as it “re-imagine[s] e-commerce.”
Indeed, Cart.com is taking on legacy giants like Amazon, providing brands large and small with online store software, digital marketing, delivery fulfillment and financial services, as well as sales and marketing analytics. Over the last year the startup has acquired nine companies and launched nine fulfillment centers. It also saw revenue surge more than 400 percent, according to a press release, and its team grew to more than 850 total employees this quarter — a significant jump from the 250 it had in August.
About 150 of those people are based in Austin, but that number will likely grow fast since Cart.com appears to be in the midst of a significant hiring push here.
“Cart.com’s strategic growth underscores our status as the undisputed end-to-end ecommerce champion, giving today’s top merchants the tech-driven edge and operational capabilities they need to grow fast and realize their full potential,” CEO Omair Tariq said in a statement. “With this new funding we’re poised to continue our strategy of acquiring top providers from across the e-commerce value chain, while staying hyper-focused on meeting the evolving needs of the brands we serve.”
This fresh capital brings Cart.com’s total funding raised to $380 million. Legacy Knight Capital Partners led the equity round, while J.P. Morgan and TriplePoint Capital provided the venture debt financing. This is also the latest of many nine-digit funding deals to happen here recently. The Austin tech scene kicked off 2022 strong with a flurry of hefty rounds last month, including Wheel’s $150 million Series B, SparkCognition’s $123 million Series D and Atmosphere’s $100 million Series C.
It’s worth noting, however, that these other companies have been around a bit longer than Cart.com. In fact, David Sawyer, a managing partner at Legacy Knight, called Cart.com’s meteoric rise “nothing short of remarkable.”
“They have the ability to rapidly execute on their vision of building the first fully end-to-end e-commerce platform at a massive scale,” Sawyer added in a statement. “Cart.com is the shining example of the world class innovation occurring in Texas right now and Legacy Knight is thrilled to support them.”
