Portland e-commerce company Rally Commerce raised $12 million from investors that it will use to further build its team and expand its market reach.
The round, which had its first close last summer, was led by March Capital. Additional investment came from Felix Capital, Commerce Ventures, Afore Capital, Alumni Ventures and Kraken Ventures.
Rally builds software for the checkout portion of e-commerce. The product is the result of founders Jordan Gal and Rok Knez’s experience building their previous company CartHook, which was a checkout tool built on the Shopify platform.
With Rally, the duo are focused on the unbundling of the consumer-facing front end of the online retail experience and the infrastructure backend. This gives merchants and developers more freedom over the checkout experience. Rally offers one-click checkout as well as other options for post-purchase offers.
“We are building an e-commerce ecosystem for the future — where business owners and developers are placed back in control of their brand,” said Gal in a written statement. “Right now, merchants are forced to accept the existing checkouts provided to them by underlying platforms, and app developers are tirelessly bound to the legacy platforms they build for. We believe there is a better way to do things — placing the merchant back in the driver's seat and setting them up for success.”
The Portland-based startup launched in 2020 and has grown to a distributed team of 26. Gal, who is CEO, is based in Chicago and Knez, who is chief technology officer, is based in Slovenia.
The company raised a $6 million seed round in 2021. As part of this deal, Hyun Koo, partner at March Capital, is joining the Rally board.
“E-commerce companies need to be flexible and connect with consumers wherever they are. This means merchants of all sizes, especially mid-market and enterprise, need the right commerce tech infrastructure to keep pace with evolving trends,” said Koo in a written statement. “Rally’s growth in the last year is a testament to the product’s market demand, and we’re excited to partner with the team to arm every business with a more profitable and consumer-friendly alternative to legacy, outdated offerings.”
The added capital will also help the company add more integrations to the product as well as add payment methods such as buy now and pay later. Later this year the company expects to build out features such as allowing merchants to accept cryptocurrencies at checkout.
