Private equity leaders were invited to an event to explore emerging opportunities in ecommerce despite economic headwinds as the sector shows no sign of slowing down.
Tadpull, the ecommerce service and software solution that is helping brands grow and produce predictable results for private equity investors using data science, presented a new event alongside BigCommerce titled Mountains, Capital, and Commerce. Additional sponsors included Canaccord Genuity, ZaneRay Group, Klaviyo, and Bolt. This event, one of the first of its kind, was specifically curated for private equity leaders and investment bankers involved in acquiring and exiting ecommerce businesses.
Recent data from the Federal Reserve shows ecommerce continuing its post-pandemic growth of 7% year over year despite economic headwinds. In 20 years, the ecommerce space has experienced positive growth across almost every recession. In light of this trend, the conference showcased the keys to identifying high potential investments in the ecommerce space and how successful private equity leaders backed exits from various ecommerce CEOs.
Attendees were able to learn firsthand from Tadpull leadership and partners who are experts in due diligence and value creation in this emerging niche.
World-renowned marketing leader, Dr. Peter Fader of The Wharton School and co-founder of Theta, a leading predictive customer value analytics company, shared insights from his recent research that focuses on the use of customer behavioral data to drive more accurate company valuations. This emerging but widely recognized modeling approach, called Customer Based Corporate Valuation (CBCV), is the process of valuing a company from “the bottom up” by forecasting customer acquisition, retention, repeat purchasing, and spending in conjunction with traditional financial data. Dr. Fader shared how the CBCV model enables private equity firms to leverage deeper customer insights to better identify and leverage sources of value through every stage of the investment process.
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“At Theta, we’ve honed a variety of analytical methods that can help investors make tough decisions on where to deploy capital by shedding light on inherent risks to growth and illuminating opportunities to create value,” said Fader. “Having partners like Tadpull who can help companies act on these findings for value creation in ecommerce is truly exciting.”
Robert Alvarez, CFO of BigCommerce discussed how their emerging SaaS architectures are not only lowering cost of ownership but also providing brands the tools to build remarkable digital experiences at a fraction of the cost from traditional workflows thus allowing private equity investors to see quicker returns all the while lowering capital and operational expenses.
“Headless commerce means PE investors can modernize and scale remarkable B2C and B2B ecommerce businesses faster and for much less than legacy proprietary systems, which is obviously good news to any investor,” said Alvarez. “However, achieving this vision requires a diverse team of true ecommerce experts, and we’re excited to see BigCommerce trusted partners like Tadpull and ZaneRay leading this conversation in the private equity space.”
Prior to the conference, attendees participated in a survey that resulted in new data specific to what investors are interested in and looking to learn more about in the ecommerce industry. The results from the survey are as follows:
- 75% of respondents were interested in benchmarks for top performing digital properties
- 61% were interested in frameworks for creating digital business flywheels
- 52% were interested in CEO perspectives for successful partnerships and technology stacks for eCommerce and lowering costs
Additional topics of interest included hidden variables in value creation for eCommerce exits and emerging trends for acquiring traffic to a site across paid, SEO, email/SMS, and influencers.
The conference created a dialogue on the latest trends and methods that have been shown to build resilient ecommerce properties despite the recent upheavals of Apple’s tracking policies and the fallout from Meta’s ad platforms. Remarkable success stories highlighted the opportunities during a downturn economy around managing diverse digital campaigns while also using predictive analytics to tackle inventory glut. This trend, once implemented, has resulted in significant growth across business sectors for boosting returning customer rates and operating cash flows.
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The conference has proved the critical value Tadpull and its partners bring to the ecommerce community by providing top-tier equity leaders the ability to share data that simply cannot be obtained anywhere else, while also showcasing frameworks and AI insights that will help grow businesses of any size.
Co-founder, and CEO of Tadpull, Jake Cook, says, “We’re still in the early innings of ecommerce and much of the private equity playbook is being written as we speak. While the opportunity for investors and companies is enormous it does require brands to harness a variety of datasets and execute flawlessly in light of increasing competition to achieve great returns. Tadpull is honored to help host these types of conversations with our fantastic partner ecosystem and private equity clients.”
