No Turning Back: How Marketplaces – and Mirakl – Became Unstoppable
Every so often, an opportunity arrives that pushes a business from category dominance into a new level of global leadership. For Mirakl, that moment is now – and as we announce the news of our $555 million Series E funding round, led by Silver Lake, we’re reflecting on what has brought us to this point.
We shared the news of our last round of funding a year ago on the tail end of an extraordinary few months. Never-before-seen circumstances sent consumers and business buyers rushing to online channels, and something extraordinary happened: eCommerce penetration experienced 10 years of growth during the first three months of 2020 alone. “Acceleration” doesn’t even begin to cover it.
But the benefits of this exponential growth didn’t accrue equally. A disproportionate share went to those operating online marketplaces. During the fourth quarter of 2020, marketplaces grew by more than double the overall eCommerce rate as businesses opened new categories and diversified suppliers in response to this new demand. Through the power of the platform model, the world’s leading enterprises were able to offer their customers the in-demand products they sought, from masks and hand sanitizer to office furniture and home fitness equipment.
The evidence was already clear. So what has changed in the last year? We now know that this momentum is truly unstoppable. During the first half of 2021, far beyond the dark early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mirakl recorded 90% growth in year-over-year bookings value. The transformative power of platforms, which are behind the strength, flexibility, and agility of enterprise marketplaces, has completely changed the conversation, and there’s no turning back.
So now, Mirakl faces an entirely new scale of opportunity. The stakes are higher than ever, and make no mistake: we’re all in. Today, we’re taking this next step in the Mirakl adventure because we’re more confident than ever that Mirakl has what it takes to become a sustainable, long-lasting, generational business and a true global leader in this new context.
We have fantastic customers – more than 300 of them, in more than 40 countries and almost any industry that you can imagine. We’ve partnered with Madewell to create a true destination for discovery, and The Kroger Co. to expand its digital services to deliver anything, anytime, anywhere. We’re helping UNFI provide hyperlocal products online faster to retailers, and Toyota bring its dealers online to upgrade the customer experience in the material handling industry. It’s an honor to work with each and every of our Platform Pioneers as they lead the platform revolution.
We have an incredible team of 560+ Mirakl Workers (and growing) in 14 different countries, all connected together by the passion and excitement that they have for this opportunity. We are so thankful for this smart, dedicated, collaborative team, without whom Mirakl, and our role in the new digital economy, would be no more than a dream.
We have truly exceptional technology that not only created the category but continues to stand head and shoulders above the rest, and the leadership that makes it possible for us to deliver on that promise to our customers every day.
Above all, we have a clear-eyed vision of what the future entails as we begin this new phase of our journey. (And we’re not just talking about the sleepless nights ahead.)
It’s a journey of global growth, both in our Paris and Boston headquarters and across major markets in EMEA, the Americas, and Asia Pacific. It’s one that will see the extension of our technology to bring our customers to an entirely new level of success. And, it will prove to be a transformation of our own as we become a platform business ourselves through Mirakl Connect – the largest ecosystem of high-quality, marketplace-ready sellers, enabling any enterprise to quickly launch and grow a marketplace business.
The opportunity to build something big comes around rarely in life. As Mirakl’s founders, we are rededicating ourselves to this journey today, knowing that time is the most precious resource that we have, because we’ve only just scratched the surface of the impact we can have on businesses, people, and communities. With the support of our investors and our team, we stand ready for you to join us in this collective adventure – because there’s no going back to the traditional way of doing business.
