Salsify’s Record Results Land Them $43M in Fresh Capital
Consumers today are choosing their own buying journeys — They expect to be able to decide when, where and how they will shop and buy. That expectation is driving disruption across the commerce industry as the impact of digital engagement transforms that journey. In fact, Forrester predicts that by 2022, 58% of all retail sales will be influenced by digital.
This disruption will create winners and losers, and companies that deliver technology designed to enable seamless journeys will be victorious in what we call the new invisible commerce landscape.
Salsify is one of those companies. They’ve placed a large bet that the evolving world of seamless commerce is creating enormous opportunity for brand manufacturers to take control of their own commerce destiny. And that bet has been paying off handsomely with dizzying growth since we first invested in 2013. That success is being underscored with today’s announcement that they’ve secured a $43M Series D round of funding. This round of funding, which we’re delighted to participate in, will be used to expand Salsify’s impact across the global commerce landscape.
Salsify has seen brand manufacturers develop an entrepreneurial spirit, driving transformation from within to fight the headwinds of commerce. These brand manufacturers are being squeezed on all sides:
- Retailer uncertainty: brand manufacturers’ retailer customers are struggling to find their footing in a new age of digital-first consumers. For a telling visual, consider that the face of Toys ‘R Us, Jeffery the Giraffe, has been relegated to a mere statue at a children’s hospital in New Jersey!
- Attack of the private labels: an increasing number of segments are in danger of being commoditized, driven particularly by a certain e-commerce retailer based in Seattle.
- Digital upstarts: the Warby Parkers, Bonobos’, and Bai Brands of the world are stealing market share and creating margin pressure with impressive agility.
In response, smart brand manufacturers are disrupting their own people, process, and technology to fight back. They’re revolutionizing how they take products to market and they’re doing so with Salsify’s product experience management (PXM) platform at the center.
L’Oreal. Mars. Coca-Cola. Lego. 3M. These are just a few of the hundreds of manufacturers, representing thousands of brands, that are using Salsify to create digital product experiences across all the touchpoints consumers use to discover and buy. This growing cadre of manufacturers committing to their digital-first future has led to Salsify’s triple-digit revenue growth with users across more than 60 countries.
From social media to retail and distribution channels to the brands’ own direct-to-consumer sites — wherever product content is needed to drive the consumer-buying journey, digital leaders choose Salsify. The platform gives them a central point from which to manage the creation, syndication, and optimization of product content to drive discovery and sales on the digital shelf.
No matter how the buying journey evolves across seamless commerce, brands that wish to grow margins and market share cannot afford to leave their product experience destiny to others. While the physical supply chain may end predominantly at a storefront for years to come, the digital experience supply chain must be accurate, complete, personalized, and available wherever the consumer wants it to be.
It is this seamless digital consumer experience that Salsify provides to brand manufacturers and that we believe so strongly in. We don’t customarily invest in this late of stage round, but our conviction for their team, strategic direction and results have led to our participation. We are proud to join the other great investors and to have introduced one of our limited partners, Greenspring Associates, as the lead investor for this Series D round.