Oxatis a leading European cloud e-commerce player, is raising €5 million to foster its growth in France and abroad

Oxatis, Europe’s number 1 provider of cloud e-commerce solutions with more than 10,000 active merchant sites, is today announcing a €5 million fundraising round involving private investors advised by Arkea Capital, along with existing investors including Omnes Capital.

“This significant fundraising reflects the positive growth momentum resulting from our cloud e-commerce solution, the only one of its kind in the market. Our ambitious target is to quadruple our revenue in the next five years by offering a high-quality solution, stepping up commercial efforts and building a more international business in our four European markets, i.e. France, the UK, Spain and Italy”, said Marc Schillaci, Chairman of Oxatis’ Executive Board. “We are delighted that Arkea Capital and its investors have decided to join us. The fundraising shows that they, along A Plus Finance and Omnes Capital, have confidence in us, and it provides us with a substantial amount of funds to help us achieve our objectives.”

Oxatis is a French company that offers a full e-commerce solution to SMEs. It is the only European player in its market that uses genuinely cloud-based technology, i.e. a single database, centralised hosting and features accessible to all clients. Oxatis is bringing the benefits of cloud architecture – which is quickly being adopted because it is easy to deploy, is constantly improving and offers excellent technical performance – to its clients and partners.

Oxatis provides clients with a high-performance e-commerce solution and regularly adds new features, which is crucial to success in an increasingly competitive environment.

Oxatis’ development efforts in the next four years will be focused on the following three strategic areas.

Research & Development

The current fundraising will enable Oxatis to continue its innovation strategy by strengthening its R&D team. Following on from its acquisition of Sage France’s e-commerce division in 2014, Oxatis will continue to invest in web B2B (business to business) features, a market that is set to see volume growth of more than 35% per year in the next four years.

In addition, in line with best practice in the USA (web-to-store, mobile commerce, social commerce, etc.), Oxatis’ teams are constantly adding new features. One example is a fully optimised mobile site that is as easy to use as a genuine mobile app: this has already boosted some clients’ mobile revenue by almost 50%.

In 2016/17, more than 70 new features will be added to the solution and deployed for the benefit of all clients. “SaaS means that we can provide the best technology to all of our merchants,” explains Marc Heurtaut, CTO and co-founder of Oxatis.

Boosting commercial momentum and partnerships with management software companies and banks

Oxatis will increase its presence in the SME segment by expanding its commercial teams and carrying out targeted marketing efforts. “We will strengthen our ties with our 450 resellers in Europe which, through their understanding of SMEs, play a vital role in making their e-commerce plans a success,” adds Florence Caillat, Head of International Sales at Oxatis.

Oxatis will also bolster its links with the Sage/Ciel group in the UK, Spain, France and Belgium (2 million client companies). For two years now, Oxatis has provided the standard e-commerce solution for the whole Sage/Ciel group, thanks to its SaaS architecture and the quality of its interfaces between management software and its e-commerce solution. Oxatis has also been selected as the exclusive partner of the TeamSystem group (300,000 client companies) in Italy.

Partnerships with banks also form part of the Oxatis strategy, capitalising on its SaaS offering. Building on its highly successful partnership with Crédit Agricole, Oxatis offers consistent, customised solution to banks that want to expand the range of services they provide to SMEs, moving from a simple payment tool to a comprehensive, secure and centralised e-business solution. Two new agreements with banks are currently being finalised, with the aim of serving several thousand more SMEs.

Development in Europe

Oxatis is planning to strengthen its leading position in its four national markets (France, the UK, Spain and Italy); these account for 60% of the European e-commerce market, which in turn is the world’s largest e-commerce market. Europe’s diversity in terms of usage methods, payment and logistics systems, languages and regulations has enabled Oxatis to build a unique market position. Oxatis will use the funds currently being raised to extend its expertise and increase the proportion of revenue it generates outside France from 20% currently to more than 50% by 2020.

“We are very happy to work with Oxatis and to help it to boost its growth. The expertise of its staff, client feedback and the quality of its service range will ensure that the company’s international expansion is successful,” said Pierre-Emmanuel Boulic, Head of Innovation at Arkea Capital.

 “Oxatis’ growth shows the appeal of its solutions and the rapid expansion in its market. Omnes Capital is delighted to be providing further support to Oxatis, helping to create Europe’s number one cloud e-commerce company,” added Renaud Poulard, Partner, Venture Capital at Omnes Capital.

 “A Plus Finance has supported Oxatis’ development since its first funding round. The arrival of private investors, represented by Arkea Capital, will further boost the company’s growth, both in France and internationally. Oxatis leads the French market with its unique e-commerce offering, and has built a strong business serving small and medium-sized companies, creating real entry barriers to rivals in its markets,” said Niels Court-Payen, CEO of A Plus Finance.

Investors

Arkea Capital
Pierre-Emmanuel Boulic & Jean-Yves Noir

Omnes Capital
Renaud Poulard, Partner, Venture Capital

A Plus Finance 
Niels Court-Payen, Guillaume Girard

Auditors
PwC Services aux entrepreneurs, Aude Bouvet
PwC Société d’avocats, Guillaume Morineaux

Oxatis’ lawyers
Brunswick – Philippe Beauregard, Céline Leparmentier

Investors’ lawyers
Gide Loyrette Nouel – Pierre Karpik

Oxatis’ advisers
Clipperton – Nicolas von Bulow, Thibaut Revel