Chicago tech is starting 2017 off on the right foot. CloudCraze, a Chicago-based e-commerce solutions provider announced on Thursday that it has raised a $20 million round of funding.
CEO Chris Dalton said CloudCraze expects to hire between 30 and 40 people in 2017. That announcement comes only a day after Mediafly's announcement that it has raised $10 million to hire in a big way.
Insight Venture Partners led the round, with participation from Salesforce Ventures. The funding will be used to expand the CloudCraze team, boosting product development and supporting the company’s continued growth in the United States and international markets.
“The capital raise is going to increase our visibility,” said Dalton. “We’ll be doing more marketing and more PR to promote the brand, and I think there’s a lot of interesting opportunities for us to look at expanding our capabilities into different areas like predictive analytics and back-end supply chain functions.
Founded in 2009, CloudCraze specializes in building native B2B e-commerce solutions on the ubiquitous Salesforce cloud platform. Its current clients include Coca-Cola, AB InBev and Kellogg’s, among others.
Dalton said CloudCraze’s Salesforce native approach helps companies build their online storefronts more quickly while at the same time providing them access to all the advanced business analytics Salesforce has to offer. Moreover, Salesforce’s dominance in the B2B CRM space makes CloudCraze an attractive proposition for companies looking to maintain a full-picture view of their sales data while venturing into e-commerce.
Dalton said the company experienced triple-digit growth last year and hired around 60 people, putting its total number of employees around 100. Thursday’s $20 million raise is CloudCraze’s first round of institutional capital.
Lead investor Insight Venture Partners has invested in more than 250 companies since its founding in 1995. Its portfolio includes Chicago companies like SMS Assist and Chicago-based SpotHero. Participating investor Salesforce Ventures, Salesforce’s internal investment group, has invested in more than 150 enterprise cloud startups.
Dalton said he’s excited to grow his company in Chicago.
“I moved out to the Midwest from Pennsylvania, and I’ve been here for over 20 years,” he said. “I just love the people, love the work ethic of folks who live here, and I’m very excited about the pragmatism around business — the importance of growing profitably.”
Image via CloudCraze.
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