Canadian e-commerce platform Vendasta raises $119 million in private investment

Recently, Vendasta, an end-to-end e-commerce platform based in Saskatchewan, Canada , announced that it has raised a historic $119.5 million in private investment. The company's CEO Brendan King said that the company hopes to double the number of customers it serves in the next three years.

Founded in 2008, Vendasta provides digital products and services to enterprises. The privately held company employs more than 500 people. Today, the company has more than 50,000 registered channel partners, mostly marketing, advertising and web agencies, media companies, managed service providers, independent software vendors and value-added resellers.

Experts in the tech industry say the investment will help mitigate the risks for global investors coming to the province and further strengthen Saskatchewan’s tech landscape.

In 2019, Vendasta received $40 million in funding to revolutionize the tech game for SMBs.  

Currently, Vendasta has 5 million SMB customers and sells digital solutions to local businesses , with annual recurring revenue exceeding $50 million.

The company’s latest funding was led by New York-based Lugard Road Capital, with participation from Nicola Wealth, Canadian Business Growth Fund (CBGF) and other existing investors.

The coronavirus pandemic has led more small businesses to turn to digital technologies, which in turn has driven strong growth for Vendasta. The company intends to use the money to further accelerate its growth.

CEO Brendan King said it cost Vendasta $30 million to grow to its current size, so the recent $120 million investment will go a long way.

"That just gives you an idea of ​​the scale that we're going to be able to have," King said . "Our goal is to build a lasting tech company in Western Canada, but it's really about becoming the operating system of choice for these small businesses and democratizing the way small businesses use technology."

King said the pandemic has had a "significantly worse" impact on small businesses compared to large companies . It's not Walmart and Amazon that are suffering during the pandemic, it's small businesses. Vendasta hopes to double the number of small and medium-sized enterprise customers they serve in the next three years.

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