Jungle Scout, a startup that provides analytics software for third-party Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) sellers, hired one of the tech giant's e-commerce veterans away from it.
Stephen Curial, a former director of software development who oversaw Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) teams, began as Jungle Scout's first chief technology officer earlier this month. He'll stay in Seattle for the company, which has its headquarters in Austin, Texas, but advertises a "remote-first" philosophy. Curial spent over 10 years with Amazon.
Part of bringing Curial on is to scale up Jungle Scout's operation. He'll also lead a remote-first engineering division. He said the company has already experienced significant growth since the beginning of the year — notably an 82% jump in its headcount, which now totals over 300.
"A huge part of what Jungle Scout is trying to do is grow from the traditional Jungle Scout tools," Curial said in an interview with the Business Journal. "Now it's bringing the engineering side together, building the next level of innovation and the next level of scale and growth of the business."
Jungle Scout, which raised $110 million in growth capital in March, is one of many startups that have used Amazon's retail platform to carve out a niche in the e-commerce industry. The company said it supports more than 600,000 sellers that account for $40 billion in annual Amazon revenue. It sells software-as-a-service (SaaS) products focused on improving sellers' listings.
Curial said Jungle Scout has made itself an industry leader in the space, and his knowledge can complement that.
"You need to know your share of the market, make sure you’re optimizing your business," he said. "Making sure you’re maximizing what's spent on business. And our customers have high retention rates. They see value in it and it helps run their business better."
