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Salesforce backs Marketplacer as offshore ambitions take shape

Yolanda Redrup
Yolanda RedrupRich List co-editor

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Fast-growing e-commerce tech company Marketplacer has extended the size of its recent $20 million funding round by $5 million to bring on board Salesforce Ventures as an investor.

The pre-IPO company, which counts the likes of Myer, Petstock and Metcash as customers, enables businesses to create their own marketplaces, letting them sell more goods, without having to stock them.

Marketplacer co-founders Jason Wyatt and Sam Salter have raised an additional $5 million from Salesforce Ventures. Guy Evans Photography

Speaking to The Australian Financial Review, Marketplacer co-founder and executive chairman Jason Wyatt said taking on the capital from Salesforce Ventures was a strategic move by the business.

“They have an extraordinary track record [of picking successful tech companies] and it gives Marketplacer a huge amount of credibility, as we get huge clients on board,” he said.

“Any [Salesforce] Commerce Cloud customer globally that wants to sell things they don’t own, we can now have a deep strategic partnership with.”

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Mr Wyatt said Marketplacer wouldn’t be exclusively integrated with Commerce Cloud, but that it would pursue those users as potential customers.

The investment from Salesforce Ventures comes as the company is beefing up its executive team, as it looks to expand rapidly in the US.

The company recently appointed former IBM vice-president and head of sales for Watson Customer Engagement, Jim Stirewalt, as its US president, and it has also added former director of Watson Customer Engagement for the Asia Pacific, John Mullins, to its team, with Mr Mullins stepping into the role of “chief alliance officer”.

Mr Wyatt said he hoped having the support of Salesforce would make its growth in the US easier.

“It gives us a huge amount of credibility,” he said.

”It puts us in a strong position ... .This isn’t bolt-on [funding] it’s a strategic play for both organisations and it gives us a huge competitive advantage.“

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The company was founded in 2016, when childhood friends and co-founders Jason Wyatt and Sam Salter decided to license the technology underpinning their BikeExchange marketplace to other businesses. In 2019, in order to provide the market with a clear proposition, Mr Wyatt decided to diverge the businesses.

In November, Marketplacer’s $20 million pre-IPO funding round was led by institutional investors including Endeavour Asset Management, Ellerston Capital and OC Fund, as well as Acorn Capital, Mirrabooka, Bombora Investment Management, Morgans Financial and SG Hiscock.

Street Talk reported last year that the company is expected to be worth up to $100 million after listing.

Mr Wyatt said he wanted to get some “core traction” in the US before going public later this year, or early in 2022.

“The strategic clients we’re winning will have a big impact in years two and three after they’ve come on board and start to scale. So we’re focused on that customer acquisition piece,” he said.

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“But from a governance, structure and board perspective, we already behave like a listed company internally.

“The purpose will be to drive faster growth and to increase the credibility behind the brand so that we can continue to grow.”

Last year, Marketplacer says its revenue jumped 110 per cent and across its portfolio of clients it claims to have enabled brands to connect with more than 29.5 million unique users in the last 12 months.

The investment in Marketplacer was the sixteenth made by Salesforce Ventures’ local $50 million venture capital fund.

“Marketplacer is tapping into one of the most consequential trends for the industry. Marketplacer and Salesforce Commerce Cloud are well positioned to support our joint customers as consumers increase their digital spend and sellers seek new direct routes to reach their customers,” Salesforce Ventures head of Australia Rob Keith said.

Yolanda Redrup is the co-editor of the AFR Rich List. She previously reported on technology, healthcare and Street Talk. Connect with Yolanda on Twitter. Email Yolanda at yolanda.redrup@afr.com

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