Visual merchandising platform for e-commerce retailers expands via £1.5m funding

Wealth Club has led a £1.5m investment round raising £1.3m under the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) for Advanced Commerce, a visual merchandising platform for online retailers such as LK Bennett and The Conran shop.

The London headquartered platform helps retailers merchandise their websites effectively, delivering a better online shopping experience in order to increase sales and reduce drop-off rates and basket abandonments.

Advanced Commerce was founded by André Brown who previously founded Attraqt, a merchandising platform used by over 300 enterprise retail clients, from ASOS to The White Company and Screwfix, and subsequently helped it float on AIM in 2014.

This is the second fundraise by Wealth Club, after raising £1.3m in late 2021, co-investing alongside institutional investor, Haatch Ventures. This brings the total raised by Wealth Club to £2.m, so Wealth Club clients now own a significant minority holding in the business.

Alex Davies, CEO and founder of Wealth Club, commented: “The UK e-commerce sector is estimated to be worth more than £15bn, partly thanks to the shift to online shopping during the pandemic.

“However, many retailers struggle to keep up with users’ expectations, for instance, up to 70 per cent of baskets are abandoned, and that alone can cost e-retailers millions of pounds in lost sales.

“Advanced Commerce is helping solve this. Its platform is the digital equivalent of a good shopkeeper, arranging products on shelves to maximise sales. And the results speak for themselves: increasing average value orders by 12 to 15 per cent and the volume of orders by 5 to 10 per cent.

“An opportunity to invest in a startup where the founder is a sector expert and on top of that has a proven track record with a similar business, is hugely attractive. Our clients recognise a good opportunity when it presents itself and are quick to invest.”

André Brown, CEO of Advanced Commerce, added: “We were delighted to raise a further £1.5m in order to continue growing the business at its current pace. This investment will enable us to accelerate growth and expand geographically and develop new products in the same merchandising ecosystem.

“The software we have developed is called GrapheneHC and is effectively three technologies in one including site search, visual merchandising and product recommendations. We want this technology to become the gold standard for all online retailers.”

By Matthew Neville – Correspondent, Bdaily

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