Popup co-founders Corey Holmes and Matteo Grassi. Image Credits: Popup
Popup a no-code e-commerce platform has raised $3.4M to personalize online storefronts for small e-commerce merchants.
The round was led by Accel and included Seedcamp, 20VC, and a group of angels like ex-Shopify CMO Jeff Weiser and Hopin CEO Johnny Boufarhat.
The company said the funding will be used to launch the platform, hire more staff and establish new partnerships.
“We saw a clear value proposition with merchants that are marketing savvy, are trying to grow and understand that stage of the journey,” Grassi told TechCrunch. “As we develop, we will be able to move into other sectors where we can offer some features that are requested.”
The company Popup was founded in 2021 by Corey Holmes and Matteo Grassi, two former Shopify employees. They started Popup after watching merchants selling through marketplaces (e.g., Shopify and BigCommerce) use the homepage and few product pages given, but then have to hack together a half-dozen more tools to build out everything from customer relationship management to email marketing tools. “These are often tools that don’t easily integrate with the main e-commerce platform without needing some custom coding”. Holmes told TechCrunch in a Call.
Holmes and Grassi’s experience working in Shopify gave them insight into the kind of Storefront Merchants really need to scale their online business
In their view, the two former Shopify employees have figured out how to go beyond the one-size-fits-all marketplace tools and provide personalized customer experiences with no-code tools.
Although global e-commerce sales have slowed since stores have returned to in-person shopping, the industry is projected to reach $8 trillion in 2026, up 56% from $5.2 trillion in 2021. This is why Holmes and Grassi say legacy platforms that don’t provide a way to differentiate storefronts or personalize customer experiences are not meeting merchant needs.
Enter Popup, a no-code platform for the creation, management, and hosting of online stores, from landing pages to ad campaigns to checkout, using a drag-and-drop visual editor.
“There’s a lot of merchants that we’ve been working with, and it opened their eyes to what we can do differently,” Holmes said. “When you look at Popup, we allow you to build any type of online commerce experience that you need in a matter of seconds. It’s just a drag-and-drop to be able to connect everything based on your business.”
The company’s platform started in beta in September and will be open to the public in the first quarter of 2023. It is making money through a monthly subscription and through checkout processing fees. As such, Holmes and Grassi said they weren’t able to talk about traction other than they have 40 employees.