The Ankorstore marketplace, which operates in the B to B retail sector against the giant Amazon, has just announced a fund raising of 250 million euros. At the same time, it becomes the 23e unicorn in France, according to figures from Minister Cédric O who congratulates himself, in a tweet of this announcement.
This new fundraising comes just days after the record round of funding from PayFit, another promising SME in the payroll and human resources management sector, which raised 254 million euros from General Atlantic in particular.
Barely two years after its creation in November 2019, the company, which has nearly 400 employees, is now valued at 1.75 billion euros. The company is present in 23 European countries, with offices in France, Germany, UK, Netherlands and Sweden. This new fundraising marks the entry into its capital of international funds Bond and Tiger Global in particular.
Four rounds of funding in two years
Ankorstore has been going round the table since its creation, with a fundraising of 6 million euros in December 2019, 25 million in December 2020, then 84 million in May 2021. “We are only at the beginning of the adventure ”, because the European independent trade market“ is colossal ”and Ankorstore still owns only a tiny part of it, affirms Nicolas Cohen, co-founder and co-managing director, to AFP.
The platform, which connects brands, independent businesses and small designers in sectors such as grocery, beauty, home and ready-to-wear, boasts a product catalog of more than 15,000 European brands, she details on her site.
Ankorstore’s activity tripled in the first four months of 2021, despite the closure of physical stores and successive lockdowns. If 2022 is already starting very strongly, it should be noted that this is not the most spectacular fundraising in recent months in the e-commerce sector. Last September, the French unicorn Mirakl had raised $ 555 million, or nearly 472 million euros, encouraged by the surge in online shopping for almost two years.