Woburn-based ecommerce software provider Demandware Inc. debuted a new product this morning – Demandware Mobile. The product takes the functionality and operational benefits of Demandware’s web-based ecommerce offering and brings it to the mobile channel – positioning the company as a multi-channel ecommerce provider. Demandware Mobile targets the $2.2 billion in physical goods purchased by shoppers through websites from their mobile phones this year – $1 billion more than last year and five times more than 2008.
Demandware was founded in 2004 by Stephan Schambach, now Chairman of the Board, with a vision of providing highly customizable storefronts to businesses that would remove the administrative and IT hurdles, costs and know-how from brands looking to sell their products online. The idea was to parlay Salesforce.com’s model of delivering on-demand CRM applications to business clients over the Internet, except with a customized ecommerce platform consumers would then purchase items through. Today, Demandware helps businesses and big brands from Barneys to Columbia roll out and deliver customized, digital shopping storefronts.
The Demandware Mobile product takes their enterprise commerce platform and optimizes it for the mobile web, allowing retailers to more quickly capitalize on nascent mobile commerce opportunities. Key to Demandware Mobile is the product’s ability to integrate with a brand’s existing ecommerce platform, provide a storefront across all mobile platforms including iPhone, Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Symbian and others, and maintain data consistency across multiple channels.
Demandware raised a $7 million Series A round from General Catalyst Partners and North Bridge Venture Partners in 2004. After completing build and rollout of the first fully customizable, on-demand ecommerce solution, the company received a $12 million Series B round from General Catalyst and North Bridge eighteen months later to expand their footprint. In 2007, after reporting record growth and a four-month implementation cycle, the company expanded its offices into the United Kingdom and opened a new data center in Germany. They closed $9.1 million Series C financing in 2008 from General Catalyst and North Bridge, enabling them to purchase the intellectual property of bankruptcy-laden competitor (also based in Mass.), n2N Commerce.
With focus on growth and after releasing major software updates, Demandware appointed an experienced CFO in 2009, a new CEO earlier this year, and locked down a $15 million Series D round in 2009 and a $7 million follow-on this April from General Catalyst, North Bridge and T-Venture Holdings. More recently, Mass High Tech reported in October that Demandware signed a lease for office space expansion starting January 2011 – signaling that the company is performing well. And with nods to the rich experiences offered by HTML5 and 4G in their whitepaper “Critical Success Factors for Mobile Commerce,” it seems we can expect more announcements from Demandware in the future.
Is this Boston-based ecommerce company headed for an IPO or acquisition? Leave your thoughts in the comments!
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