Amsterdam-based Instant Commerce, a headless front-end builder for fast-growing e-commerce brands, announced on Thursday, September 22, that it has secured €5.4M in a Seed round of funding.
The round comes eight months after the company raised €2M in a pre-Seed round from firstminute capital and various angel investors, bringing total investment to €7.5M.
Since its inception in 2022, Instant Commerce has landed more than 30 major clients, including Bols, ID&T, Ekster, and Yaya, and recorded an 85 per cent month-on-month growth.
Investors in this round
The current round of funding was led by HV Capital and joined by Hearst Ventures and existing investor firstminute capital.
Said Alib Haschemi, Investment manager at HV Capital, says, “The growth that Instant Commerce has shown since its founding demonstrates how strong the demand is for a solution that enables brands to build and deliver best-in-class online shopping experiences in a fast and intuitive manner. This is one of the many reasons we strongly believe Instant Commerce is well positioned to become the default headless frontend solution for eCommerce brands across the globe.”
Since 2000, HV Capital has backed Internet and technology companies through various funds and claims to be one of the most successful and financially strongest early-stage and growth investors in Europe. The firm has already invested in about 225 companies and supports startups with capital between €500K and €50M.
Jacqueline Cegla, Principal at Hearst Ventures, says, “What excited us about Instant Commerce in particular was the intuitive product based on its no-code offering as it enables a broad range of retailers to go headless that weren’t able to do so before due to engineering constraints. While early this is supported by the strong demand the business sees in the market.”
Capital utilisation
Instant Commerce says it will use the proceeds to accelerate product innovation, double the team from 30 to 60 members, increase partnerships and integrations, enter new European markets, and lay the groundwork for its expansion into the US.
Coen van Hees, co-founder of Instant Commerce, says, “Our platform solves a huge challenge for ecommerce brands – how to build a highly functional and engaging online storefront in a fast and cost-effective way without having to rely on a large team of developers. As a result, we’ve experienced an incredible amount of growth in such a short period of time. Now, with this investment, we will be able to really ramp up our expansion plans and enter markets beyond Europe.”
Headless commerce made simple
Founded by brothers Coen van Hees and Sam Van Hees, and their friend Doeke Leeuwis, Instant Commerce is a frontend-as-a-service platform for e-commerce brands. The platform enables brands to build a ‘highly’ functional and engaging headless webshop without the need for technical expertise or an expensive development team, thanks to its no-code approach.
The company’s platform utilises APIs to interface with a wide range of platforms, including Shopify, Storyblok, Algolia, and more. The headless strategy (separation of the frontend and backend) has allowed companies to meet the demands of today’s customers, including quick site speed, omnichannel presence, a distinctive shopping experience, and more.
According to the Salesforce State of Commerce report, in the next two years, 80 per cent of companies without headless commerce technology aim to install it. However, creating, maintaining, and running headless shops is a huge undertaking that needs a lot of money and labour.
One of Europe’s top e-commerce agencies was previously founded by founders Coen and Sam van Hees and Doeke Leeuwis. Through this experience, they were able to comprehend the benefits that headless commerce can provide for e-commerce brands as well as the challenges associated with creating and maintaining headless storefronts.
Leading brands such as Yaya, Ekster, Bols, and ID&T use Instant Commerce to accelerate growth online.
