E-commerce companies don’t often build big businesses: they may be big on sales, but stay thin on headcount. However, 8fig believes that these companies should still be able to get the expertise of, say, a chief financial officer, but in a way that works for their company.
When Yaron Shapira, Assaf Dagan and Roei Yellin started 8fig in 2020, the company, based in both Austin and Israel, was focused on providing lending and supply chain management tools to e-commerce companies struggling to manage their cash flow while they grow. enterprises.
However, afterwards raise $50 million in 2021CEO Shapira said e-commerce was beginning to shift from growth to profitability as the rising cost of customer acquisition and changes in privacy changed the unit’s economics.
Now 8fig is building a “C-suite” for ecommerce companies, CEO Shapira told businessroundups.org. AI CFO is the first new product to provide cash flow planning. When the company is still small, planning is easier, but when the company grows significantly and becomes more complex, companies miss out on cash flow management, according to Shapira.
“Usually these types of companies will never have a CFO, someone who actually does the finances and all the calculations, but use outside accountants to help them,” Shapira said. “This means there’s a huge gap in their schedule.”
8fig co-founders, from left, Yaron Shapira, Roei Yellin and Assaf Dagan. Image Credits: Watch photography
AI CFO offers a self-service web application that allows companies to do their cash flow planning automatically and get business continuity planning if needed from 8fig.
Since its inception three years ago, 8fig has raised more than $500 million in funding to online merchants. In 2022, the customer base and annual revenue grew by 900% and 800% respectively. During the same period, the company also tripled its workforce and released a mobile app version as well as freight management and payment functionality.
Now the company has $140 million in new funding that closed in April, $40 million in Series B shares and a $100 million credit facility to work on a full AI executive suite that includes AI Chief Marketing Officer and AI Chief Operating Officer functions later this year.
The funding was led by Koch Disruptive Technologies with participation from existing investors Battery Ventures, LocalGlobe, Hetz, the Jesselson family and Silicon Valley Bank, which is now a division of First Citizens Bank. Shapira said this was an “up” round in terms of valuation and brings 8fig’s total funding to $196.5 million.
“In these turbulent times, technology can help e-commerce companies with their planning, so you’re going to see a lot of effort from us,” said Shapira. “Helping our customers with only AI CFO is good, but not perfect. If we can help them with their marketing and logistics, this could be super important. We’re going to invest in these areas to help our customers do great work themselves and be successful in the next year and the next two years, that’s the future we’re looking at.”
