Amsterdam-based Instant Commerce, a next-generation headless storefront builder, announced on Thursday that it has raised €2M in its pre-Seed round of funding.
The startup is on a mission to redefine how e-commerce brands build and manage headless storefronts by enabling a no-code solution for faster-site speeds, higher conversion ratios, and eliminating developer dependencies.
Instant Commerce founder, Coen van Hees, says, “There’s a huge demand for our platform. In only four short months we’ve secured more than 30 clients including big names like Bols and ID&T. Now, with the support of our investors we’ll be able to rapidly expand our team (currently 19 employees), further develop our platform and start preparations for entering more international markets.”
Investors in this round
The round was led by London-based venture capital firm firstminute capital. Founded in 2017 by Brent Hoberman and Spencer Crawley, the firm is a $300M seed fund that invests across Europe and the U and is backed by over 120 unicorn founders.
Besides, the founders of Storyblok, Wandera, Snyk and Supercell also participated in this round.
Sam Endacott of firstminute capital, says, “We believe the future of web development and e-commerce is headless and have had a front-row seat in this category with our investments in Storyblok and Nuxt. However, the missing link has been a software layer to coordinate the ecosystem of APIs from the front-end that can be used by both non-technical users and developers.”
Endacott adds, “The Instant Commerce team have experienced this pain point directly having built a successful e-commerce agency, Story of AMS, before working with major global brands. Their first product – a no-code solution to help e-commerce teams go headless without technical expertise – is just the first step in what we think can be a major platform for facilitating the next wave of e-commerce growth.”
“Redefining the way we buy online”
Founded in 2022 by brothers Coen van Hees and Sam Van Hees, and their friend Doeke Leeuwis, Instant Commerce is the next-gen frontend-as-a-service platform for e-commerce companies. 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.
Founder Coen Van Hees, says, “Consumer expectations of the functionality and services online retailers should offer have grown exponentially over the past few years. This race to make online storefronts more engaging has led to much higher costs, strained infrastructure and a severe drain on resources. For many companies, it’s simply too costly to compete. This is the problem Instant Commerce solves. By making building and maintaining a headless storefront as simple and cost-effective as possible, we give power back to business owners.”
Instant Commerce’s platform integrates with different systems like Shopify, Storyblok, Algolia and more using APIs. Brands can meet today’s customer expectations with the company’s headless strategy (separation of the front-end and back-end), which includes quick site speed, omnichannel presence, better shopping experience, and more.
The company says it has witnessed the build time of a webshop drop from four months to less than a week, with costs reducing significantly.
