WebLinc Raises $6 Million Series A Financing from Safeguard Scientifics to Ignite Aggressive Growth of its Digital Commerce Platform

WebLinc, the commerce platform provider for fast growing online retailers, today announced that it has raised a $6 million Series A financing round from Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. (NYSE:SFE) to fuel its aggressive growth trajectory. The funding will be used to accelerate the development of new features for WebLinc’s commerce platform, the onboarding of third party integration partners, and to expand the company’s marketing and sales teams.

"WebLinc has a long and impressive history of powering eCommerce sites for leading brands around the globe through its innovative eCommerce platform," said Erik B. Rasmussen, Managing Director, Technology at Safeguard, who will be joining WebLinc’s board of directors. "We are very excited to partner with the WebLinc team to take advantage of the massive opportunity in the eCommerce market."

According to comScore, eCommerce grew at a rate of 13 percent year-over-year in the first quarter of 2014, while offline retail was nearly flat, achieving one percent growth from the year before. As this trend continues, WebLinc is positioned to continue helping business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) operations provide the omnichannel experience that customers now expect. It does so through a highly scalable platform, which provides full brand control, depth of features, and operational flexibility needed to run the most dynamic retail operations. WebLinc’s early adoption of responsive Web design and expertise developing native mobile apps helps clients maximize multichannel revenue and outperform the competition.

During the second quarter of 2014, WebLinc clients saw revenue increase 54 percent from a year earlier. Mobile performance for WebLinc clients was even stronger with a year-over-year revenue increase of 98 percent, and for those retailers on WebLinc’s responsive platform, year-over-year performance was the highest at 132 percent.

"This is an exciting time for our company and our industry," said Darren Hill, WebLinc's co-founder and CEO. "Our commerce platform was created specifically for the growing retailer who has become too big for off-the-shelf or one-size-fits-all solutions. At the same time, these retailers do not want their growth hindered by going with a 10-15 year-old enterprise platform, which is difficult or impossible to advance and change with the speed of business. Our successful clients have always been the fastest growing, fastest to innovate, and the fastest to have those innovations live before their competition. The WebLinc platform enables great companies to innovate circles around their competition and this funding will allow WebLinc to reach more great companies.”

WebLinc tailors its commerce platform to the needs and scale of mid to large retailers by leveraging extensive experience and success supporting clients’ need for fast growth and system flexibility. By building upon the latest technologies such as Ruby on Rails and MongoDB, WebLinc’s commerce platform has successfully supported some of the fastest growing online retailers. The company's clients include Nasty Gal, URBN’s brands Free People, BHLDN, and Terrain, U.S. Polo Assn., Thomas Scientific, Jeffers Pet, Hello Kitty and many more.

About WebLinc
WebLinc is the commerce platform provider for fast growing online retailers. WebLinc’s modern, agile technologies and strategic expertise empower companies running global, omnichannel commerce operations, and enable retailers to consistently out-pace the competition. Based in Philadelphia with a satellite office in New York, WebLinc powers commerce sites for high-growth retailers including Nasty Gal, URBN’s brands Free People, Terrain and BHLDN, U.S. Polo Assn., Thomas Scientific, Jeffers Pet, Hello Kitty and many more. To learn more, visit www.weblinc.com, follow @WebLinc or call 215-925-1800.

About Safeguard Scientifics
Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. (NYSE:SFE) has a distinguished track record of fostering innovation and building market leaders. For six decades, Safeguard has been providing growth capital and operational support to entrepreneurs across an evolving spectrum of industries. Today, Safeguard is focused specifically on healthcare and technology. Recent successful exits include Alverix (acquired by Becton, Dickinson for $40 million); Crescendo Bioscience (acquired by Myriad Genetics for $270 million); NuPathe (acquired by Teva Pharmaceutical Industries for $144 million); and ThingWorx (acquired by PTC for initial proceeds of $112 million). For more information, please visit www.safeguard.com or follow @Safeguard.