Oro Inc., a provider of open-source B2B ecommerce applications has received $13 million in new funding from private equity firm Zubr Capital and Highland Europe, a growth-stage technology firm.
Geneva, Switzerland-based Highland Europe has been an investor in Oro since 2016. The new round of funding comes as Oro celebrates its 10th anniversary. Oro plans to use the funding to develop new commerce applications, expand its management team and increase its sales and marketing activities.
“This investment will allow us to continue our mission in helping transform companies, digitizing their sales process, and expand to new markets,” Oro chief executive Yoav Kutner says in a blog post on the company’s website announcing the new funding round. “We’ll be able to unlock more opportunities, and invest in our product, sales, marketing, and partner network.”
The funding will also be used expand the company’s support for its Ukrainian team members, many of which have evacuated Ukraine to neighboring countries in the wake of Russia’s invasion of the country. “The people behind Oro are what make Oro great, and we’re committed to investing in our Ukrainian colleagues during this difficult time,” Kutner says. “[Our Ukrainian colleagues] are central to the planning and development of our products, and we’ll continue to support them as we grow and develop over the coming years.”
Later this year, Oro plans to release new versions of OroCommerce, its flagship application, OroMarketplace, which launched in 2020, and OroCRM. Oro, which is used by more than 150 enterprise businesses globally to transact more than 3 million orders annually, is used by such B2B brands as Dunlop Protective Footwear, PartsBase Inc., a marketplace for aviation parts, specialty chemical supplier Azelis, petroleum chemical manufacturer Braskem, and Animal Supply Company, a supplier of pet food and supplies to pet stores.
In the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, Oro’s customers’ sales volumes
exceeded 77% compared to the previous year, reaching a total of $1.7 billion in total sales, the company says. The following year, that client sales volume exceeded $2.3 billion, up 17% from the previous year. “At Zubr, we take pride in investing in well-run, high-potential tech businesses, and Oro sits squarely in the sweet spot we look for,” Konstantin Zapolianski, Senior Investment Director for Zubr Capital says in the blog post.
