Austin e-commerce startup Cart.com has raised $60 million in equity funding. With the new capital, the company said it was valued at $1.2 billion, putting it in a somewhat rarified group of local businesses to reach unicorn status.
Cart.com — which offers to other companies software and services for end-to-end e-commerce operations, from online shopping to transportation — said the new valuation was a 50% increase from its $840 million valuation in February 2022, when it raised $240 million in equity and debt funding.
Investors in the new round, announced June 27, included B. Riley Venture Capital, Kingfisher Investment Advisors, Snowflake Ventures, Prosperity7 Ventures and Legacy Knight.
A unicorn is a privately held startup valued at $1 billion or more. Many new unicorns were minted in 2021 and 2022, which were frothy times for venture capital deals and startup valuations. However, they have become somewhat rare: 18 companies achieved unicorn valuations in this year's first quarter, the lowest level since 2017, according to PitchBook Data.
That makes Cart.com's latest announcement all the more remarkable. While the company didn't indicate what its long-term plans may be, one of the investors, Los Angeles-based B. Riley Venture Capital, notes online that its focus is on "late-stage private growth companies with a path towards public markets."
CEO Omair Tariq founded Cart.com in Houston in 2020. The headquarters was moved to Austin in early 2021. At the time, it had about 400 employees, including about 150 in Austin. That has grown to a little more than 1,000 employees, including warehouse workers, a company spokesperson said. That includes more than 100 Austin employees, a number that fluctuates with seasonal demand at its Austin fulfillment center.
The company does not have specific hiring plans but notes it continues to hire for full-time roles in logistics, both remote positions as well as jobs in Austin, Canada and Europe.
Cart noted its new funding will help fuel international expansion. The spokesperson said that Canada and the European Union are its near-term focuses for expansion of its physical logistics footprint and existing software customer base.
The company's headquarters is in downtown Austin at Seventh and Brazos streets. The company said it doesn't currently have any plans to expand or alter its real estate footprint in Austin.
"As a leading commerce software and services provider, we are focused on enabling our customers to compete and win across every channel through digital tools and digitally driven logistics capabilities," Tariq stated. "We will continue to invest in our industry-leading commerce data capabilities, which are built to address the specific inventory, channel and supply chain challenges facing enterprises."
Cart's new funding and billion-dollar valuation follow an undisclosed number of layoffs it made back in January. At the time, the company said the cuts were part of an effort to "reevaluate our organizational structure and make difficult decisions in order to realign our teams." Many technology companies, both large corporations and startups, cut jobs near the beginning of the year in anticipation of economic turbulence.
Prior to the staff reduction, Cart.com had been growing at a rapid pace. In 2022, the company reported it grew revenue by more than 500% across software, services and fulfillment offerings and said it doubled its gross merchandise value and fulfillment footprint.
"Cart.com is driving the evolution of commerce and unlocking business value through unified data across the entire value chain," Harsha Kapre, industry principal for retail data and technology at Snowflake Ventures, stated. "With Cart.com’s data processing and data storage in Snowflake’s Data Cloud, they can provide customers with new options to keep control of their own data and take full advantage of Snowflake’s data analytics and data-sharing capabilities."
