Sidecar Closes $11 Million in Series C Financing

MAY 11, 2017
Sidecar Closes $11 Million in Series C Financing
The company will use the funds to enhance development of its machine learning technology and scale its team, sourcing talent heavily from the Philadelphia region

PHILADELPHIA – Sidecar has completed a Series C round of equity and debt financing totaling $11 million. New investor Harbert Growth Partners (HGP) joined previous investors Ascent Venture Partners and Osage Venture Partners to lead the round. Also participating was The Yard Ventures, a Harvard alumni venture fund. Silicon Valley Bank provided the debt financing. This Series C round brings Sidecar’s total financing to $26 million in less than three years. It also marks HGP’s first investment in a Philadelphia-based company.

Sidecar will use the funds to further develop its technology solutions—Sidecar for Google Shopping, Sidecar for Facebook Dynamic Ads, and Sidecar for Bing Shopping—to meet retailers’ evolving marketing needs. The SaaS company will increase headcount by 40% by the end of 2017 to support product development and market expansion. It will draw heavily from the Philadelphia area, emphasizing growth of its engineering and data science teams, as well as its customer success, partnership, sales, and marketing teams.

Guided by founder and CEO Andre Golsorkhi, Sidecar has emerged as a key tool in retailers’ e-commerce marketing stacks. Based on advanced machine learning and deep data science expertise, Sidecar’s technology powers shopping campaigns on Google, Facebook, and Bing, and is scalable to meet the demands of emerging channels.

Since Sidecar’s $8 million Series B financing 18 months ago, it has more than doubled the size of its customer base, which now includes Moosejaw, Vermont Teddy Bear, and others on the Internet Retailer Top 100. The company also expanded to the SMB and international markets, with organizations including wehkamp, the Netherlands’ largest online retailer, adopting Sidecar.

The company doubled headcount over the past year to support this growth, sourcing the majority of talent from the Philadelphia region while also establishing a U.K. team. Sidecar has developed new technology partnerships to further build out its capabilities. These combined factors led the company to triple recurring revenue year over year.

“Sidecar is driving online product advertising into the future,” said Tom Roberts, General Partner of Harbert Growth Partners. “The company continues to reimagine what’s possible with artificial intelligence in retail, and its solutions have been validated by brand-name retailers across the U.S. and abroad. We are confident Sidecar will keep building on its established leadership position, and feel honored to be a part of its success.”

One of the reasons retailers and investors alike value Sidecar is the surging growth of online retail. The National Retail Federation forecasts online retail will grow 8-12% in 2017, up to three times faster than the growth of retail as a whole.

This trend indicates continued opportunity to capitalize on the online product advertising market. Google remains the largest media owner in the world, attracting $79.4 billion in ad revenue in 2016. And last year marked a major tipping point in retailers’ AdWords budgets: For the first time, retailers allocated more spend to Google Shopping ads than text ads (53%).

“For online shopping to become the mainstay of retail, merchants and consumers need to better connect where the online shopping experience begins—the product discovery stage,” said Golsorkhi. “Machine learning and artificial intelligence are poised to make this massively complex challenge much easier, enabling retailers to better understand consumer behavior and predict buying patterns, while creating relevant, enjoyable experiences for shoppers. With our continued dedication to machine learning technology, our customers, and our people, Sidecar is positioned to deliver this critical advancement to retail.”

PRESS RESOURCE
Associated blog post by Sidecar founder and CEO Andre Golsorkhi: https://hello.getsidecar.com/blog/sidecar-closes-11-million-series-c-investment-round

ABOUT SIDECAR
Sidecar is an e-commerce marketing company that builds the advanced technology retailers need to optimize cross-channel online shopping campaigns. With a team of data science and e-commerce experts, our state-of-the-art machine learning engine, and a massive volume of data, Sidecar is the magic behind retail’s most efficient and powerful online shopping campaigns.

ABOUT HARBERT GROWTH PARTNERS
Harbert Growth Partners is an investor in emerging companies with high growth potential in markets underserved by traditional venture capital investors. We have been partners with entrepreneurs for the past 15 years and are currently investing out of HGP IV. In addition to Sidecar, HGP IV’s portfolio includes investments in Cloud Elements, Envera, MapAnything, Shipt and Springbot. HGP is the U.S. growth equity affiliate of Harbert Management Corporation (“HMC”), an alternative asset management firm with approximately $4.8 billion in Regulatory Assets under Management as of April 30, 2017. HMC is a privately-owned firm formed in 1993 to sponsor alternative asset investment funds. HMC serves foundations and endowments, funds of funds, pension funds, financial institutions, insurance companies, family offices and high net worth individuals across multiple asset classes. For more information, visit harbert.net.

ABOUT ASCENT VENTURE PARTNERS
Ascent Venture Partners is dedicated to investing in innovation for the enterprise. In backing more than 100 early-stage, emerging technology companies since 1985, Ascent has remained committed to its mission of partnering with exceptional entrepreneurs striving to build innovative market leaders. Ascent’s investments have yielded powerful results generating more than $10 billion in enterprise value, which speaks to the firm’s deep knowledge, experience, commitment, and networks. The Ascent investment team manages six venture funds with total commitments of more than $500 million, and is located in Boston, Mass.

ABOUT OSAGE VENTURE PARTNERS
Osage Venture Partners (OVP) invests in early stage, business-to-business (B2B) software companies on the East Coast from its offices just outside of Philadelphia, PA. With over $150M under management, OVP seeks to invest in determined and creative entrepreneurs and provide them with the capital and support required to build high-growth, market-leading businesses. For more information, visit osagepartners.com.