Magento have just snagged a $250 million investment to fuel their growth strategy, worldwide expansion of sales, marketing & client support, new product innovation and future acquisitions.
Mark Lavelle, chief executive of Magento speaking to the Financial Times said the new investment will be used accelerate growth in the Asian market, saying “Asia Pacific is an extremely high-growth region… this will help us invest wisely in our global expansion”.
The cash is coming from Hillhouse Capital, although Permira funds will continue to own a majority stake in the company which they acquired when eBay Enterprise and Magento were broken up and sold piece meal by eBay in 2015.
Hillhouse see tremendous growth opportunities for Magento globally and specifically in Asia where Hillhouse already have experience of operating with the likes of Baidu (a Chinese search company equivalent to Google in the West) and JD.com, the largest retailer in China come marketplace).
What will be interesting to see is if Magento start operating in the East if extensions start to appear to enable Western English, German, French and Spanish speaking companies to easily localise their websites for Asian markets. That would be a game changer for Magento and propel them from their position as a defacto option on everyone’s potential platform lists to an inevitable choice as the gateway to the East.
