BigCommerce

About

BigCommerce is a SaaS ecommerce platform founded in 2009 by Australian entrepreneurs Eddie Machaalani and Mitchell Harper ¹. The company was built on the foundation of Interspire, a web software business the two founders had started after meeting in an online chatroom in 2003 ². BigCommerce launched its first U.S. office in Austin, Texas in 2009 ¹.

The platform enables merchants of all sizes to build, manage, and grow online stores, with capabilities spanning storefront creation, search engine optimization, hosting, marketing, and security ³. The company listed on the Nasdaq Global Market under the ticker symbol “BIGC” on August 5, 2020 ³.

Funding History

Series A (August 2011): General Catalyst Partners led a $15M Series A. Larry Bohn, managing director at General Catalyst, joined the BigCommerce board ⁴.

Series B (September 2012): General Catalyst led the $20M Series B, with Floodgate joining as a new investor. Mike Maples, managing partner at Floodgate, also joined the board ⁵.

Series C (July 2013): Revolution Growth led a $40M Series C — the firm’s largest single investment at the time. Steve Case joined the BigCommerce board as part of this round. Total funding reached $75M ⁶.

Series D (November 2014): SoftBank Capital led a $50M Series D with participation from Telstra Ventures, American Express, General Catalyst, and Revolution Growth. Total funding reached $125M ⁷.

Series E (May 2016): GGV Capital led a $30M Series E. Jeff Richards, managing partner at GGV Capital, joined the BigCommerce board. Total funding reached $155M ⁸.

Series F (April 2018): Goldman Sachs led a $64M growth equity round at a pre-money valuation of approximately $450M. General Catalyst, GGV Capital, and Tenaya Capital participated ⁹.

IPO (August 2020): BigCommerce priced 9,019,565 shares at $24 per share, raising approximately $216M. Shares began trading on the Nasdaq on August 5, 2020 ³.

What Investors Say

Steve Murray, partner at SoftBank Capital, on the Series D (November 2014):

“Bigcommerce’s easy-to-use, cloud-based platform allows businesses of all sizes to rapidly build and deploy full-service ecommerce and m-commerce tools to grow revenues.” ⁷

Holger Staude, Vice President of Private Capital Investing at Goldman Sachs, on the Series F (April 2018):

“BigCommerce is an acknowledged leader in SaaS ecommerce for the mid-market, and given its track record and scale we see tremendous opportunity for continued growth.” ¹⁰

Jeff Richards, managing partner at GGV Capital, on the ecommerce market opportunity at the time of the Series E (May 2016):

“We believe we are still in the early innings of a massive global shift from offline to online retail, with mobile and younger demographics driving the trend…BigCommerce and its competitors have brought hundreds of thousands of merchants online in the past few years, but there are millions left to come online.” ⁸

Larry Bohn, managing director at General Catalyst, at BigCommerce’s IPO (August 2020):

“We couldn’t be happier for them and what they’ve accomplished.” ¹¹

What Founders Say

No independently sourced founder testimonials from portfolio founders found. (BigCommerce is itself the startup subject of this profile.)

Eddie Machaalani, co-founder, on his motivations for starting the company:

“I started as a web designer back in 2001-2002, and always had this real passion for helping small businesses grow.” ¹²

Mitchell Harper, co-founder, on the decision to raise venture capital:

“The idea of raising money was scary because we hadn’t done it before and we had seen you could have massive success if you took the risk but also massive failure grew too quickly and let it kill you.” ¹³

Sources