This week, mobile retail startup NewStore announced that it raised a $45 million Series B-1, capping off six months of “significant global growth” spurred on by the pandemic. The company did not disclose investor information.
Founded in 2015, NewStore is designed for direct-to-consumer retailers, providing them with all the tools they need to run an online business right on their smartphone. The app handles everything from customer checkout to fulfillment, providing retailers with all the mobile-first tools they need so they can give their customers the seamless online experience they’ve come to expect from companies like Amazon.
NewStore counts familiar brands like UNTUCKit and Outdoor Voices as just a few of its many customers, and has been backed by major VC firms like General Catalyst and Salesforce Ventures.
This latest funding is NewStore’s second Series B — the first was raised back in 2017, followed by a $20 million corporate round at the start of 2020, according to Crunchbase. Since then, the company appears to have been busy. Its platform has been adopted by hundreds of retail stores in 20 countries across North America, Europe and Asia; and in April it was admitted into the MACH Alliance, a group of independent tech companies dedicated to tech innovation. In the first half of 2021 alone, NewStore says it grew its SaaS revenue by 100 percent year-over-year.
Founder and CEO Stephan Schambach attributes much of this success to the pandemic, which made digitization an essential part of economic survival for DTC companies. Things like buy-online-and-pickup-in-store (BOPIS) and remote selling solutions became necessities, and NewStore offered them.
“The pandemic created a rush to adopt omnichannel in the retail industry, and NewStore’s platform was perfectly positioned to help the brands looking to make the transition,” Schambach said in a statement. “This is the foundation of our success, and the latest investment will allow NewStore to build on this momentum as omnichannel continues to be a strategic imperative for all retailers.”
NewStore says it will use this fresh funding to expand its global footprint. The company is also growing its team, with a handful of tech positions available now at its Boston headquarters.
