Machine Labs has raised a Seed Extension round of GBP1 million (USD1.25 million) lead by Techstart Ventures alongside the founders, the angel investors Bill Dobbie and Richard Freedman, and the British Business Bank.
Machine Labs has raised a Seed Extension round of GBP1 million (USD1.25 million) lead by Techstart Ventures alongside the founders, the angel investors Bill Dobbie and Richard Freedman, and the Government’s Future Fund. An additional GBP100,000 was provided in grant funding by Amazon and Scottish Enterprise.
“We’ve had a great first year with over 300 e-commerce stores from 23 different countries choosing Machine Labs to increase their sales,” says Andrew Veitch, Founder and CEO. “Right now, we work exclusively with Shopify who power over 1 million web shops around the world, of which 80,000 are in the UK. We are planning to add other e-commerce platforms next year.”
Covid-19 caused disruption to the funding round and forced the cancellation of several critical business meetings in North America but it also resulted in an increase of 57 per cent in usage of Shopify as high street shops were forced to switch to e-commerce.
“This was far from the ideal time to be raising money,” says Veitch. “Fortunately, we had made enough progress in the critical US market, which accounts for most of our customers, to get the support from investors for our next step.”
“I’m hugely grateful to everyone who wrote a cheque at this difficult time,” he adds. “I’m excited about where we will be in 2021.”
The company has now raised over GBP2 million (USD2.5 million) following the original Seed round on 28 June, 2019.
