Banco Sabadell, through its investment vehicle Sabadell Venture Capital, has led a funding round for Openbravo, in partnership with current principal shareholders of the Spanish technology company.
Openbravo offers retail and restaurant chains a cloud-based omnichannel platform which enables them to accelerate the integration of all sales channels and fully support the new role of physical stores in omnichannel retail by facilitating more fluid and personalised customer experiences. Current international clients include Decathlon, Cirque du Soleil, Sharaf DG, and Nike Factory Stores Indonesia, as well as Spanish customers such as Toys “R” Us, Outlet PC, Deporvillage and Patadon.
With over 10 years on the market, Openbravo has been able to transition successfully from its position as an ERP solution provider for different sectors to that of a specialized provider of an omnichannel platform for the retail and restaurant industries. This strategy has already enabled the company to achieve a 70 per cent increase in global subscription sales in 2018. It also enabled Openbravo to become a benchmark on the French market for retail software solutions in little over a year after opening its office in Lille, France in 2018 – winning a dozen new clients including Groupe Rand and Zôdio (part of Adeo Group).
This financing will allow Openbravo to consolidate its positioning on the Spanish market and transfer the successes achieved in France to the national market, on which to expand its customer base.
To this end, Openbravo has announced the opening of a new corporate office in Barcelona and the reinforcement of its management team with the arrival of José Ignacio Alarcón as the new Sales Director Iberia. Mr. Alarcon brings more than 20 years of experience in the selling of supply chain management solutions by leading software companies such as JDA Software or i2 Technologies for retail and distribution sectors in both national and international markets.
“We are impressed by Openbravo’s strategy and its rapid evolution to offer the market today a unique omnichannel platform in terms of functionality, technology and ease of adoption. If any retail or restaurant chain seeks to accelerate its omnichannel strategy, Openbravo should undoubtedly be an alternative for consideration,” says Raúl Rodriguez Sabater, Managing Director of Sabadell Venture Capital. In addition, he adds, “Openbravo’s business model – with recurring revenues from significant clients and with the objective of consolidating the market where they are profitable – made it suitable for financing with venture debt, minimizing the dilution for its shareholders.”
Marco de Vries, CEO of Openbravo, says: “The confidence of an entity such as Banco Sabadell further confirms the success of our commitment to the retail sector and to Spain in particular, and it is a definitive incentive for us to achieve our goal for becoming a benchmark on the national market, in the same way we did in France and we aspire to do in other international markets.”
