Bigcommerce Acquires Checkout And Inventory Software Startup Zing

E-commerce platform Bigcommerce announced today that it has made its first acquisition, point-of-sale and inventory management software startup Zing. The value of the deal was undisclosed.

Bigcommerce has raised $125 million so far from investors including General Catalyst, Softbank, and American Express, and is pursuing rapid growth in the U.S. and Asia. It faces formidable competition, however, from other e-commerce platforms like Shopify (which recently filed for a $100 million initial public offering) and Magento, as well as marketplaces such as eBay and Amazon that target smaller vendors.

In its announcement, Bigcommerce said that the purchase of Zing will allow it to give retailers better tools and APIs to manage inventory and sales across multiple channels, such as an online store and brick-and-mortar location.

More than 30 percent of Bigcommerce’s 85,000 clients currently operate at least one physical storefront in addition to their web stores, and the integration with Zing will allow them to handle O2O services like in-store pickup and shipping from store inventory more easily.

At the time of Bigcommerce’s last funding round, when it received $50 million, founder and CEO Eddie Machaalani told TechCrunch that its growth plans revolve around attracting the estimated 7 to 10 million retailers in the world who still do not have an e-commerce site by making it simple for them to launch an online store and integrate it with their existing offline operations. It also offers tools from several partners, including Poynt, Square, and Lightspeed POS.

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