Netherlands e-commerce feed and PPC automation solution Channable have secured over €55 million ($62 million) in Series B funding. The company have experienced considerable growth, becoming the Benelux market leaders and the latest investment will support their continued ambitions and expansion, funding more research and development, while building on their physical expansion into new markets. The round was led by the Paris and San Francisco-based tech investors Partech, with Peak, the early-stage investor, continuing their support for the business.
Channable was founded in 2014 to help retailers manage an increasingly complex environment. Although the development of the web creates more opportunities for retailers, it also meant more problems. While updating a single retail site may have been a challenge in itself, each new sales channel multiplies the complexity. A point noted by Bruno Crémel, General Partner at Partech, “The shift to multichannel commerce and the convergence of marketing channels and commerce channels creates complexity for merchants. Channable’s powerful, yet easy-to-use solutions allow brands and retailers to efficiently increase their audience and grow revenues.”
Curing retailers headaches
A retailer might seek to maximise their exposure across multiple marketplaces and platforms but that runs the risk that the data was inconsistent. Confusing customers or even resulting in losses as customers took advantage of out-of-date listings. The alternative was to maintain a large team to control and monitor the data.
Rob van Nuenen, the company’s co-founder and CEO, had previously been a web developer and had also set up the IT department for a fashion company. A combination that helped him spot the need for something to bridge the gap between retailer and the web. Joined by Robert Kreuzer and Stefan Hospes, they established Channable to build that bridge.
It works by acting as the intermediary between retailers and their channels, improving the results for both. “We offer brands and agencies the tools they need to reach their customers and scale their reach,” van Nuenen, Channable’s co-founder and CEO, told TFN. “By enabling brands and agencies to automatically improve their online presence and boost sales, it frees up their time to strategise. And it helps e-commerce businesses increase the quality of their data feed, making it easier to meet the exact needs of their channels and keep the product information automatically updated, which in the end helps to facilitate accurate advertising.”
The growth of online retail has also meant significant growth for Channable, reaching 91% year-on-year growth since being founded. Their service enables retailers to easily use hundreds of directories, search engines, e-commerce sites, and social networks, with over 6,000 clients using its connections.
Putting retailer in control
Channable are not the only ones to spot the problem and offer a solution, and there are several competitors worldwide promoting their approach, including names like Lengow, Channeladvisor and ProductsUp. Channable, however, takes a unique approach that is designed to put their clients in charge. “We offer a simple-to-use, but innovative, DIY solution for our customers,” says van Nuenen. “This enables them to have full control over their online marketing. Channable takes care of the synchronisation of their channels and optimises the product information.”
This approach, along with their home advantage, has made them the market leader in the Benelux region. But they plan to build from that, increasing their market share in the rest of Europe and elsewhere. They have recently opened their first US office in New York to drive their growth into the Americas. Van Nuenen is ambitious for the company. “By further extending our connections with local and global marketplaces and marketing channels,” he says, “we want to become the one-stop-solution for e-commerce players around the world.”
