Consumer shift to buying online during the global pandemic \u2014 and keeping that habit \u2014 continues to boost revenue for makers of developer tools that help e-commerce sites provide better shopping experiences.<\/p>\n
LA-based Nacelle<\/a> is one of the e-commerce infrastructure companies continuing to attract investor attention, and at a speedy clip, too. It closed on a $50 million Series B round from Tiger Global. This is just six months after its $18 million Series A<\/a> round, led by Inovia, and follows a $4.8 million seed round in 2020.<\/p>\n The company is working in \u201cheadless\u201d commerce, which means it is disconnecting the front end of a website, a.k.a. the storefront, from the back end, where all of the data lives, to create a better shopping experience, CEO Brian Anderson told TechCrunch. By doing this, the back end of the store, essentially where all the magic happens, can be updated and maintained without changing the front end.<\/p>\n \u201cOnline shopping is not new, but how the customer relates to it keeps changing,\u201d he said. \u201cThe technology for online shopping is not up to snuff \u2014 when you click on something, everything has to reload compared to an app like Instagram.\u201d<\/p>\n Nacelle raises $4.8M for its headless e-commerce platform<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n More people shopping on their mobile devices creates friction due to downloading an app for each brand. That is \u201csucking the fun out of shopping online,\u201d because no one wants that many apps on their phone, Anderson added.<\/p>\n Steven Kramer, board member and former EVP of Hybris, said via email that over the past two decades, the e-commerce industry went through several waves of innovation. Now, maturing consumer behaviors and expectations are accelerating the current phase.<\/p>\n \u201cRetailers and brands are struggling with adopting the latest technologies to meet today\u2019s requirements of agility, speed and user experience,\u201d Kramer added. \u201cNacelle gives organizations a future-proof way to accelerate their innovation, leverage existing investments and do so with material ROI.\u201d<\/p>\n Data already shows that COVID-era trends accelerated e-commerce by roughly five years<\/a>, and Gartner predicts that 50% of new commerce capabilities will be incorporated as API-centric SaaS services<\/a> by 2023.<\/p>\n Those kinds of trends are bringing in competitors that are also attracting investor attention \u2014 for example, Shopistry<\/a>, Swell<\/a>, Fabric<\/a>, Commerce Layer<\/a> and Vue Storefront<\/a> are just a few of the companies that raised funding this year alone.<\/p>\n\n