The collaborative commerce platform for B2B and B2C sellers achieved unicorn status.

Riding a pandemic-induced surge in its business, e-commerce platform VTEX achieved unicorn status with a $225 million Series D round. The round comes within less than a year of its previous, Softbank-led $140 million round last November. (Tech Crunch)

Co-led by Tiger Global and Lone Pine Capital, the round included participation by Constellation, Endeavour Catalyst, and SoftBank (TYO: 9984).

The valuation of $ 1.7 billion in this round is a 4X jump over its previous valuation.

COVID-19

The disruption caused by the pandemic has forced many consumer-facing businesses to restructure their operations into an online rather than brick-and-mortar model. VTEX builds e-commerce marketplaces for such customers, allowing them to make the transition quickly, easily and cost-effectively.

The platform’s client list is veritable who’s who of top-tier consumer companies such as Walmart (NYSE: WMT), Coca-cola (NYSE: KO), Nestle (SWX: NESN), and AB InBev (EBR: ABI).

“The pandemic is challenging brands in unprecedented ways, and this funding will help us bring our collaborative commerce platform to more brands so they can achieve rapid time-to-revenue despite the challenges they face now and in the future,” says Amit Shah, Chief Strategy Officer and U.S. General Manager at VTEX, in a statement. “It’s exciting to see both B2B and B2C sellers across the globe finding success with collaborative commerce in ways they didn’t think possible.”

Rapid growth and rising profitability

VTEX has been profitable over the last decade. It is likely to report a 114% increase in year-on-year growth during 2020 and a record GMV of $8 billion. Before this year, it was clocking a growth of 50% annually.

The current funding brings its aggregate finances raised to $365 million.

VTEX has meanwhile built some 200 marketplaces for its clients.

IDC has named VTEX the world’s fastest-growing e-commerce platform.

Use of funds

The company will use the new funds to accelerate R&D, global expansion, and meet record demand from B2B and B2C merchants.

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