Sage will make a minority investment in Brightpearl, a digital operations platform for retailers, according to a statement released by the companies. The investment will allow the companies to build a partnership that will help retail and e-commerce customers streamline operations, and expand cloud finance and retail management solutions to accelerate digital transformation, according to the statement.
Brightpearl is a omnichannel retail management software solution that includes ordering, inventory, financials, CRM and point-of-sale (POS) functions in one platform. The company has headquarters in Bristol, UK and Austin, Texas in the U.S.
Under the deal, cloud business management software firm Sage will invest approximately $23 million USD (£17 million) into Brightpearl’s business and take a seat on the company’s board.
Sage led the round of Series C funding, investing approximately £17 million ($23 million) out of a total of £25 million ($33 million) raised by Brightpearl in this funding round, according to the statement.
Existing shareholders including Cipio Partners, Notion Capital and Verdane invested an additional £8 million ($10 million USD). Pagemill Partners, a division of Duff & Phelps, served as the financial advisor on the transaction, according to the statement.
Sage Invests in Accelerating Retail Digital Transformation
Brightpearl helps approximately one thousand retail customers to streamline and automate their retail operations across order management, CRM, fulfillment, retail accounting inventory, and warehouse management, according to the statement.
The company also has partnerships with organizations like Shopify, eBay and Amazon, and has seen the number of online firms joining its platform grow by 75 percent in the last quarter of 2020.
The partnership with Brightpearl is consistent with Sage’s broader strategy to invest in complementary, high growth cloud-based software applications, the company said.
Sage and Brightpearl: Automating Retail Processes
Lee Perkins, chief operations officer at Sage, commented on the investment:
“As retail businesses from across the globe recover from the impact of Covid-19, trading online has gone from being a ‘nice-to-have’ to a ‘must-have’ for retailers. Digitizing back office operations is a critical step towards transitioning to online commerce – and through investing in high growth, cloud solutions like Brightpearl, we are committed to supporting our customers to not only make that switch quickly and easily, but to also grow and compete.”
Derek O’Carroll, CEO, Brightpearl, said:
“We are delighted to build this new relationship with Sage to further support our retail customers and accelerate the strong presence that Sage and Brightpearl have in the UK and U.S. Brightpearl’s solution brings significant benefits by automating retail processes so global merchants can save time and deliver outstanding and rapid end-to-end customer experiences. This investment will allow us to expand the platform and provide even better service, increase our product innovation and our fabulous team globally.”
