Shopify to expand POS platform, has raised $100 million

The Ottawa-based ecommerce platform that makes it easy for any business to launch an online store has raised $100 million to date, adding $22 million in a round led by OMERS Ventures and Insight Venture Partners, it announced this morning.

Bessemer Venture Partners, FirstMark Capital, Georgian Partners, and Felicis Ventures also took part in the sizeable Series C fundraising round. The money will be used to invest in Shopify’s recently-launched offline retail offering, a point of sales (POS) system that includes a hardware kit allowing merchants to accept credit card payments using an iPad and Shopify’s backend inventory management system.

The strategy is to merge online and offline retail management into one system for merchants to deal with, according to Shopify. It says it wants its platform to disrupt the retail industry by shifting sales away from larger big box stores to small merchants and entrepreneurs. During the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales that follow the American Thanksgiving, Shopify stores sold more than $100 million in products, it says, and Shopify stores received more traffic during Cyber Monday than Walmart, Best Buy, and Target.

Shopify began when founder and CEO Tobias Lütke realized the system he and his co-founders had created to sell snowboards realized was the better product to sell. Calling the decision the best he’s made in his life, Lütke writes in a blog post that since 2006, Shopify has been focused on making it easy to create an online store and now the company’s focus is evolving.

“This year’s launch of Shopify POS highlights our expanding focus to also include the physical retail world,” he writes. “Using Shopify and Shopify POS together reveals our true ambition: To be the first company in the world that fuses all the distinct parts that are needed to run a complete modern commerce business – all in one amazing product.”

Today Shopify has grown to more than 300 employees, and its software supports more than 80,000 stores in 100 different countries. It forecasts merchant sales on the platform for the calendar year of 2013 to total $1.5 billion.

Back in August Shopify made its first acquisition, buying Toronto-based user experience firm Jet Cooper for an undisclosed sum.

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Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

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Brian Jackson
Brian Jacksonhttp://www.itbusiness.ca
Editorial director of IT World Canada. Covering technology as it applies to business users. Multiple COPA award winner and now judge. Paddles a canoe as much as possible.

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