Ankorstore - the fastest growing European B2B marketplace reaches unicorn status in only two years with €250 M funding

Only two years after its successful launch, Ankorstore, the wholesale marketplace gathering 200,000 retailers and 15,000 brands across Europe, has reached unicorn status with a valuation of €1.75 billion. The €250M Series C funding round was led by BOND and Tiger Global with the participation of Eurazeo and Coatue as well as all existing investors: Index Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, GFC, Alven and Aglae.

Ankorstore, whose mission is to reinvent the wholesale market for independent brands and retailers in order to level the playing field for independents has rapidly emerged as the category leader across Europe. Ankorstore’s sales volume increased by 950% between 2020 and 2021. With more than 11,000 brands registered in 2021, today, there are more than 15,000 brands selling more than one million unique products on the platform.

“Our mission is to create a global wholesale business to swing the balance in favor of independents'', explains Nicolas Cohen, Co-CEO and Co-Founder and continues: “We want to make things easy and simple for brands and independent retailers to do business together, being a part of their daily lives and changing the outdated habits of how retail works today - for the better. This funding will allow us to expand geographically and accelerate activities in our European core markets. Today, we operate in 23 countries and have offices in Paris, London, Berlin, Amsterdam and Stockholm. In 2022 we will open offices in Italy and Spain so we can be as close to our brands and retailers as possible.”

Nicolas D’Audiffret, Co-CEO and Co-founder adds: “We needed an extraordinary team to scale-up as fast as Ankorstore has. That’s why I want to thank the entire team who has been instrumental in helping us grow from 0 to 400 employees, from 0 to 15,000 brands and into a unicorn valuation in only two years. There are very few companies in the world that have accomplished this in such a short time. This is just the beginning in our mission to empower independent retailers. As we speak, we're hiring top talent from across Europe, to strengthen our collaboration with brands and retailers and to develop our local sales and customer support to offer the best customer experience, so that retailers can order easily and with no risk. We plan to scale both horizontally and vertically by adding new product categories and features. We recently added two new categories “sports & wellbeing” and “pets” to our five core product categories and will continue to invest in major product and tech developments to improve the customer experience for our community.”

“We are obviously thrilled about this funding but we will not lose sight of what drives us: our mission to support independent brands and retailers and do everything we can to enable their success”, underlines Pierre-Louis Lacoste, co-founder and CBO and continues: "In retail terms an 'anchor store’ is a shop that drives traffic and draws attention. We want independent retailers to become the local ‘anchor stores' in their community, they're the ones who offer the curated product at the right price and combine that with a unique and special experience. Ankorstore is creating an ecosystem for brands, retailers and consumers in which everyone thrives. Together, we are building the future of independent retail."

“Ankorstore is building the next generation operating system for retail. Through its rapidly scaling cross-border wholesale network, the company provides best-in-class infrastructure for thousands of brands and independent stores worldwide. We are inspired by Ankorstore's leadership team and its bold vision - transforming commerce and unlocking powerful new opportunities across the retail value chain,” said Mood Rowghani, general partner, BOND, who will be joining the company's board as a director.

“As we expected upon our initial investment, Ankorstore has been instrumental in the reopening of independent stores and retail across Europe these last few months. The strong growth combined with their bold vision and experienced team is very promising for the future. Tiger Global is proud to continue to support Ankorstore on their journey to becoming a worldwide leader, building the future of independent retail", said John Curtius, Partner at Tiger Global.

About Ankorstore
Ankorstore is a curated marketplace connecting independent brands with the most loved local retailers. Ankorstore equips retailers with the tools and terms to grow and manage their business and enables brands to build their wholesale business across Europe. Today, Ankorstore is working with more than 200,000 independent retailers and 15,000 brands across 23 EU countries. The independent trade sector weighs more than a trillion euros in Europe and around 2 millions of independent retailers. Ankorstore has raised a total amount of 365 million euros over its first 2 years of existence.
Ankorstore was founded in November 2019 by four French e-commerce entrepreneurs: Pierre-Louis Lacoste (former Etsy country manager), Nicolas d’Audiffret and Nicolas Cohen (founders of A Little Market) and Mathieu Alengrin (former Head Engineer at Vestiaire Collective). The company has offices in Paris, London, Amsterdam, Berlin and Stockholm and 400 employees. To learn more, visit: www.ankorstore.com