The Irish e-commerce site has raised €8.85 million to develop its SaaS platform and expand into new markets
ChannelSight was founded in 2013 by John Beckett, who has been an entrepreneur since he built the Ryanair website in 2000 – whilst sitting his Leaving Cert. The software-as-a-service (SaaS) company helps brands and consumers optimise their shopping experience and has clients such as Sony, Philips and Bosch. The other co-founders are Niall O’Gorman and Kevin Dundon who has since left the company.
CEO John Beckett explains how ChannelSight operates,
ChannelSight is an e-commerce enablement company working with large brands like Philadelphia and Oreo to e-commerce enable their digital assets with a ‘buy now’ button on their various Facebook posts.
“When the user clicks on that they see the retailers who have the item in stock. This shortens the buying journey, removes friction and generates really cool data around how the brand’s other advertising is working and how effective it is.”
Sealing the Deal
The recent funding round is a Series B round led by Amsterdam-based SaaS investor Connected Capital and included Spanish VC firm Nauta, Dublin-based Act Venture Capital and Enterprise Ireland. The latter had all previously participated in a €3.3 million fundraise for ChannelSight in 2015
Moving and growing
The new funding acquired will be primarily used to grow the team by 50 percent over the next year, and move into new markets, according to Beckett. He said,
There has been a lot of innovation internally, which has led to a number of new products. It is now time to deliver that to customers.”
The company reported €3.53 million in accumulated losses for 2017 due to heavy investment in product development and growing the team. According to Beckett, the company recorded revenue growth of 110 percent last year.
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