Centra, a direct-to-consumer and wholesale platform for global brands, has secured an investment of 10 million. It will use the new funding to power up product development and accelerate its international expansion. The platform specifically wants to challenge ShopifyPlus and enterprise-level platforms.
‘Over 200 brands on the platform’
Centra is an API-based ecommerce platform focus on helping brands with their direct-to-consumer and wholesale operations. It was founded in 2016 and has been growing ever since. In 2020, it welcomed more than 50 new fashion brands on the platform. It’s achieved an average annual recurring revenue growth of 50 percent. Now, the platform works with over 200 brands, including Sandqvist and Eton Shirts.
Martin Jensen, CEO at Centra: “We founded Centra with the ambition to create a flexible and comprehensive platform that gives brands full control of their marketing and sales channels and enable them to connect with their customers, both on the D2C and wholesale side. After five years of high growth, we have become the preferred vendor to brands in Sweden and have initiated our expansion in Europe.”
Funding from Verdane
With Centra, brands can streamline multi-market and multi-channel operations. In March this year, the company announced that it was aiming for further growth. Now, it has received 10 million euros in funding from Verdane, a European growth equity investment firm. This funding will make it possible for Centra to expand in more European countries.
‘We look forward to working with Verdane in the next phase for Centra.’
“We are pleased to bring on an investor with a strong track record in supporting both software and digital consumer companies, and that has helped other Northern European SaaS businesses take the next step in their journey. We look forward to working closely with Verdane as we embark on the next phase of growth for Centra.”
Challenging Shopify
According to the Swedish platform, Shopify has changed direct-to-consumer ecommerce for smaller brands, by making building your own online store more affordable and easy. However, larger companies with more complex requirements usually can only use less flexible solutions.
‘Our solution is more flexible and less expensive.’
Centra wants to change that and challenge Shopify and other solutions such as SAP, Salesforce and Magento. “Enterprise brands no longer need to accept getting stuck in expensive IT-consultancy projects with a long time to market as our solution is far more advanced, flexible, less expensive and has a much faster time to market.”
