eCommerce platform AMP today announces it has raised US$18.5m / AUD$28.5million in a series A funding round which included participation from Jungle Ventures and Openspace Ventures, both based in Singapore. The round enables the company to further expand its interconnected, end-to-end platform for eCommerce merchants.
Founded by two multi-exit entrepreneurs, TradeGecko founder Cameron Priest and Advocately founder Patrick Barnes, AMP was launched after the pair encountered hundreds of brands and merchants managing around 25 different apps daily (and that number was only growing) in order to run their eCommerce stores. Most merchants are smaller businesses and these apps were essential for the running of the eCommerce operation, but they rarely worked together and were difficult to manage.
Commenting on the round, co-founder and CEO Patrick Barnes said: “We’re thrilled to have the support of such a strong group of investors as we continue to build the AMP platform. This investment will enable us to expand our team and accelerate our product development through a mix of building and buying best-in-class software to empower eCommerce entrepreneurs to start, grow and scale their business.”
AMP has already made three acquisitions to further round out its end-to-end eCommerce platform including checkout and conversion startup AppHQ, shipping solution, Addition, and analytics tool, Lifetimely.
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Co-founder Priest said: “AMP was born from the desire to keep things simple. We’ve created a platform of interconnected, high-performance solutions, built to power and scale eCommerce businesses while solving multiple problems from optimising sales, managing shipping and tracking analytics. Over the next year, the AMP platform will see significant additions to its suite of solutions, along with improvements to existing solutions, more integrations and exciting partnerships. ”
Commenting on the investment, David Gowdey, Managing Partner at Jungle Ventures, said, “eCommerce share will only continue to grow and the digital contribution to revenue for small businesses is only getting larger. These merchants need solutions which work seamlessly together, so that they can increase efficiency and maximise sales. AMP is both building and acquiring apps to create a compelling suite of services that help power these merchants’ stores in Australia, the US and around the globe.”
Shane Chesson, Founding Partner at Openspace said, “Openspace is excited to support AMP on its journey to become the leading software ecosystem for the eCommerce sector. Founded by SaaS and eCommerce veterans, AMP will enable merchants around the globe to increase their sales, deliver leading customer experience and improve operational efficiency.”
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AMP has grown from 0 to 20k customers in 18 months including feastables, Liquid Death, True Classic and Hydro Flask. One of AMP’s customers, Garth Stivey, Founder of sports equipment company GND, commented on the experience of using the platform.
“Before we deployed AMP across GND Fitness, our biggest pain point was that we were using a heap of different apps to run upsells, fulfilment, shipping and analytics. None of them worked together, and it was a headache. Moving to the AMP suite of apps has meant all the apps work together, the data flows in and out of each app seamlessly, customer service is consistent, and we actually know what’s going on in our business.”