Olist, an E-commerce solutions platform, managed to enter the unicorn category after receiving a US$186 million Series E financing. It was led by Wellington Management and brought them to a valuation of US$1.5 billion.
This comes eight months after they raised a US$23 million round in a Series D led by Goldman Sachs. In fact, at that time it was rumored that the company was preparing to launch its initial public offering (IPO).
As of today Olist has a total of US$322.5 billion in funding, notes Crunchbase, with one of its main investors being Softbank. However, the Brazilian company is also backed by Globo Ventures, Corton Capital, Valor Capital Group, Goldman Sachs, and Kevin Efrusy, among others.
This 2021 they have increased their growth, as they tripled in size. In addition, in the last year they have closed acquisitions such as Clickspace, a social commerce company; PAX, a logistics company; as well as VNDA, and Tiny ERP, both for small business commerce.
Olist Connects Small Businesses To Increase Sales
Latin America is one of the fastest-growing regions in the world. In fact, the latest estimates from Statista Digital Market Outlook showed that the Latin American and Caribbean market will reach a retail sales value of US$80.5 billion by the end of 2021, and is projected to exceed US$105.5 billion by 2025. They also highlighted that the most fruitful markets in LatAm are Brazil and Mexico.
Thus, Olist joins the e-commerce momentum in the region. Their main aim is to connect small businesses with larger markets to sell their products to a wider customer base.
How do they do this? Through a SaaS licensing model for physical businesses, small entrepreneurs gain market share.
Olist has operations in three areas: trading, logistics, and capital. Now, with their new capital, they will seek to expand their service offering. They also want to expand into more countries in Latin America, as they currently only operate in Brazil and Mexico.
The company has 45,000 merchants and retailers as clients. Tiago Dalvi, founder and CEO of Olist, told the media that they have always been at the forefront of digital retail, but that the growth of e-commerce boosted the use of their solutions.
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