Storenvy Raises $5M to Become the Ultimate E-commerce and Shopping Discovery Platform

SAN FRANCISCO, CA, February 14, 2013 (Press-News.org) Storenvy announces a $5 million Series A funding round to fuel the growth of its social commerce platform, now used by more than 30,000 creative businesses and processing millions of dollars per month. The financing round was led by Intel Capital with Spark Capital and participation by First Round Capital.

Storenvy is both a custom storefront builder as well as a social marketplace. The company provides online merchants with a dead-simple, stylish custom storefront, for free, with tools to fully customize and launch an online store in minutes. And unlike other store platforms, Storenvy also features a vibrant social marketplace with a built-in shopper base of over a half-million users, where shoppers can browse items from all Storenvy storefronts in one place. As the only storefront/marketplace hybrid on the market, Storenvy provides a one-two punch for online merchants, offering the perks of a custom online store as well as being part of a marketplace where they can connect with new customers.

Since Storenvy launched its social shopping Marketplace in December 2012, site metrics have been explosive.
+ $1 million in monthly sales through the new Storenvy Marketplace (1000% increase), in addition to millions of dollars already passing through individual storefronts.
+ 1.2 million Envies (Storenvy's version of a "like") by registered users.
+ 200% traffic increase.
+ Now over a half-million registered users.

"We're aiming to be the world's default commerce platform," Storenvy founder and CEO Jon Crawford says. "The world deserves a common place where anyone can immediately become a fully-functional online merchant. The existing solutions are either too difficult to understand or leave you with the challenge of figuring out how to get traffic to your store. Storenvy was born out of the belief that the best storefront platform will have a network effect that will drive traffic for the merchants. And the traffic and sales we've seen in just the first two months of our new Marketplace prove that we're onto something big."

The Storenvy Marketplace features a real-time social discovery experience curated by shoppers. Products are displayed in order of real-time popularity, as determined by powerful ranking algorithms that measure both user engagement through the Envy button and actual purchases. Products that a shopper's friends have engaged with are marked with their friend's faces, and shoppers can subscribe to stores to instantly get updates on new releases. With 30,000 new products added each week, the community-driven social curation keeps the site's content constantly relevant.

In addition to recently adding former Tumblr president John Maloney to the board, Storenvy is now adding Christine Herron, director at Intel Capital, and Santo Politi, general partner at Spark Capital, to its board of directors. "Storenvy is the commerce platform that merchants and shoppers have been waiting for," Herron says. "Their frictionless, social e-commerce experience connects to a new generation of merchants, and is driving staggering user and sales growth. We're thrilled to be investors."

Politi, whose team at Spark invested early in Twitter and Tumblr, adds, "When we first met Jon, he had less than 2,000 stores and a big vision. Since then, Storenvy has blossomed into an industry-leading commerce platform home to over 30,000 businesses," he says. "Jon has a very unique vision for the future of social commerce. We're excited to continue to partner with him as he turns that vision into a reality."

The new financing will be used to dramatically expand the team from seven to upwards of 25 people as the company continues to build the most relevant e-commerce and social shopping platform on the market. The company is currently hiring product leads, engineers, designers and merchandisers. Crawford is focused on building a company culture that incorporates the best of style, creativity, UX and technology in order to solve complex engineering challenges to create elegant experiences that help shoppers better connect with excellent products and their creators. Learn more and apply at storenvy.com/jobs.

ABOUT STORENVY

Storenvy is a new way to shop the world's most creative businesses, and the easiest way to open your own online store.

It's the only store builder and marketplace in one — the best of both worlds.

The Storenvy Marketplace lets shoppers discover and buy unique products from independent businesses around the world by connecting with friends and influencers.

With Storenvy Stores, merchants can create a customizable online storefront in minutes. The Storenvy Facebook app gives merchants a free store on their Facebook Page. Running a Storenvy store is free, with no set-up fees, monthly fees or listing fees.

Premium features are available to storefronts for a monthly fee, including custom domain support for $4.99/month and advanced discount features for $2.99/month. The company will soon introduce a commission fee for sales made through the marketplace, though sales through a merchant's storefront will remain free.

Storenvy raised a venture capital seed round in 2011 from Spark Capital, First Round Capital, Kleiner Perkins, CRV and others, followed by a Series A in 2013 from Intel Capital, Spark Capital and First Round Capital. The team of seven is based in San Francisco's Mission District and is now hiring.

Press kit: http://nvy.gd/12HMCDB

Storenvy.com, a free online store system and social shopping community aims to democratize ecommerce, connecting independent merchants with shoppers in a social setting. For more information, contact us anytime at (816) 808-7084.