[Updated 5/21/18, 3:43 pm. See below.] Mobile commerce startup NewStore has hauled in $20 million in fresh venture capital, according to a document filed with the SEC.
That brings the Boston-based company’s funding total to around $109 million, according to SEC filings. Its previous backers include Activant Capital, General Catalyst Partners, and Stephan Schambach, NewStore’s founder and CEO.
Schambach led the latest investment round, said Larry Bohn, General Catalyst managing director and NewStore board member, in an e-mail to Xconomy. The directors listed on the $20 million regulatory filing include Schambach; Bohn; Activant’s Steve Sarracino; Carol Meyrowitz, executive chair of The TJX Companies; and Sharen Jester Turney, former Victoria’s Secret CEO. Meyrowitz and Turney were appointed to NewStore’s board in April. [Added Bohn comment.—Eds]
“Our most recent funding is the result of new members joining the board of directors, who were interested in the opportunity to invest,” according to an e-mailed statement attributed to NewStore chief marketing officer Phil Granof. A company spokesperson declined to share additional details about the investment. [This paragraph added.—Eds]
Schambach has been building e-commerce companies since the early days of the Web in the early 1990s. He previously co-founded Intershop Communications and Demandware, two e-commerce companies that went public and became sizable businesses. Demandware was acquired in 2016 by Salesforce for $2.8 billion. Now, Schambach is trying to notch another startup win with NewStore.
The company aims to arm retailers and brands with the right mobile tools and strategies to take advantage of consumers’ increased shopping via smartphones, and compete better against Amazon (NASDAQ: [[ticker:AMZN]]). NewStore’s mobile-focused software is meant to ease the buying process and unify the offline and online shopping experiences. The startup’s tools fuse location-based marketing, mobile payments, and on-demand retail services. (Click here to read a hypothetical shopping scenario involving NewStore software.)
NewStore has offices in Boston, New York, and Berlin, according to its website.
