AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Fresh off a $15 million Series C that fully funded in January, Shopgate Inc., the leader in mobile commerce, today announced it has appointed Marc Biel as Chief Executive Officer to lead its expansion strategy into the U.S. mobile market. Shopgate leads the market by providing high-impact mobile commerce apps and mobile websites to SMB and enterprise retailers.
Biel’s promotion comes after successfully serving as COO/CFO since 2014. Biel’s promotion to CEO comes on the heels of his decision to move the company’s U.S. headquarters to Austin from Palo Alto and to begin building out the new U.S. team. The German-based eCommerce company plans to use its recent funding to hire 50 new staff this year for its Austin office.
“After a review of several cities in the U.S., we quickly realized Austin offered the best opportunity for the kind of rapid growth we envisioned,” said Biel. “Austin is home to an incredibly robust eCommerce ecosystem, including some of our strategic partners like BigCommerce and Volusion. Access to veteran talent was another contributing factor to our move as Austin continues to attract the kind of skilled staff we need in areas such as B2B sales, strategic marketing and customer success.”
Notable hires include Hass Johnson, VP of Sales, previously with BigCommerce, and Casey Gannon, VP of Marketing, previously with Volusion LLC.
Fueling Shopgate’s growth are its mobile app innovations proven to increase revenue for retailers of all sizes. The company already owns nearly 80% of the German mobile commerce market and thanks to an aggressive R&D strategy it has been rolling out more product enhancements that have captured the attention of mid-market and enterprise retailers. 50% of all internet usage occurs on mobile apps and over 50% of worldwide eCommerce traffic comes through mobile devices, paving the way for Shopgate’s success. With over 650 customers already in the U.S., one of their largest customers is Gameday Merchandising, a sports and event merchandising company responsible for the online sales of such iconic brands as the Golden State Warriors, the Oklahoma City Thunder and Tough Mudder.
“We plan to roll out cutting-edge technology in 2016, including one that we think will make a big splash during our first-ever SXSWi in March,” notes Biel. “Technology leadership will define the successful retailer in 2016. Retailers must strive to create retail experiences that not only engage but drive customer loyalty. Retail apps are the single best way to create brand evangelists.”
For more information about Shopgate please visit: www.shopgate.com.
About Shopgate:
Shopgate is an award-winning mobile commerce platform that enables more than 12,000 merchant customers in five countries with over 150 million unique app visitors per year. Shopgate’s leading SaaS platform enables online retailers to easily create, maintain and optimize native apps and mobile websites for the iPhone, iPad, Android smartphones and tablets. Shopgate uses cutting-edge features such as one-click payments, mobile coupons, push notifications, QR scanners and a revolutionary ad scanner for images. Shopgate was founded in Germany by Andrea Anderheggen, Ortwin Kartmann and Dieter Kartmann in 2009 and has a team of more than 175 employees in Europe and the U.S. It has recently been discussed in several media as one of the fastest growing mobile commerce platforms in the world.
