The largest e-commerce destinations have multi-vendor capabilities whether it be Amazon, Walmart, Etsy, or eBay. There are a number of benefits in choosing a marketplace model such as offering a greater selection to your customers, increased data opportunities, automation, and scalability due to lower inventory requirements. However, for many brands and e-commerce merchants, the thought of building a robust multi-vendor marketplace can be daunting. This is where Nautical Commerce comes in. The company offers a signature multi-vendor marketplace infrastructure platform that allows companies to launch and scale marketplaces in under 90 days without long drawn-out development cycles, eliminating development risk. The company has built a seamless merchant console that allows vendors to onboard their products easily, manage their presences, and establish commission agreements. Operators of marketplaces can handle marketing and implement affiliate programs to drive exposure and conversions to the marketplaces. With a number of integrations, Nautical Commerce is well suited for direct-to-consumer, B2C, or even B2B.
AlleyWatch caught up with Nautical Commerce Founder and CEO Ryan Lee to learn more about the business, the company’s strategic plans, latest round of funding, and much, much more…
Who were your investors and how much did you raise?
Our Series A was led by Drive Capital with participation from Golden Ventures and Accomplice Ventures.
Tell us about the product or service that Nautical Commerce offers.
Nautical offers a multi-vendor marketplace platform to quickly launch and scale online marketplaces. The platform orchestrates marketplace transactions from discovery through delivery and exception handling.
What inspired the start of Nautical Commerce?
I spent years helping the largest companies in the world with their digital transformation in my roles at Apple, Visa, Modo (fintech), and Turvo.
Each of these companies was looking to leverage the marketplace model to increase revenues and customer reach, but didn’t know how to do it. Marketplace technology was not accessible even to the biggest of the big. They were spending millions of dollars and years just to get the project off the ground.
With Nautical’s multi-vendor marketplace platform, we’ve made marketplace technology accessible. You don’t have to spend millions on custom development and years to get your marketplace in front of customers.
How is Nautical Commerce different?
Nautical is a complete marketplace platform. Unlike marketplace plug-ins that sit on top of an e-commerce platform, Nautical orchestrates marketplace orders along every step of the transaction – including discovery, delivery, and exception handling. Many companies look at marketplaces solely through the lens of commerce, but to truly support marketplaces you have to enable the commerce, fintech, and logistics functions.
What market does Nautical Commerce target and how big is it?
Nautical serves marketplaces and companies looking to enable third-party sellers on their site, launch a new marketplace concept, or monetize their network with a company-owned marketplace. Brands, retailers, manufacturers, and distributors understand that the future of commerce is connected with syndicated offerings across a wide variety of channels.
What’s your business model?
We charge a flat monthly SaaS fee to use our multi-vendor marketplace platform.
What are your post-COVID office plans?
We are dual-headquartered in NYC and Toronto. We are committed to collaborating both in-office and remotely, and bring employees together face-to-face often.
What was the funding process like?
I am fortunate to have Niklas Halusa, a former investor, as my cofounder and president. Niklas was invaluable to our fundraising process.
What factors about your business led your investors to write the check?
- We are clearly serving an unmet need in the e-commerce market – e-commerce platforms are not suited for multi-vendor commerce
- Marketplaces and connected commerce are not passing trends
- We were able to show clear growth since launching our platform in December of 2021 and articulated a vision for the future of Nautical
Masha Khusid (Drive Capital) said: “E-commerce is becoming more distributed and single-vendor platforms were not built for this multi-vendor future. Ryan and his team built the only multi-vendor ecommerce platform and are serving a huge need in the market. We’re impressed by what Nautical has already accomplished and are proud to enable them to deliver on their mission to democratize marketplace technology.”
Ameet Shah (Golden Ventures) said: “The last two decades saw the unbundling of marketplaces. Marketplace giants are ceding their market share to more curated experiences on sites like StockX, Faire, and Etsy. We expect niche marketplaces to continue to propagate, but existing commerce offerings are ill-equipped to support these types of multi-vendor businesses. Nautical’s ability to quickly set up marketplaces is a huge step forward.”
What are the milestones you plan to achieve in the next six months?
We are looking to grow our team by 40 employees in the next 18 months in our NYC and Toronto offices.
Where do you see the company going now over the near term?
We look forward to adding more members to our team to continue to enhance our multi-vendor product capabilities.
What’s your favorite outdoor dining restaurant in NYC?
Our office is very close to Madison Square Park so at lunchtime you can most likely find our team at Eataly or Shake Shack.
