Staytuned carts away with $34M in new funding to become the go-to software suite for high-growth ecommerce brands
The US ecommerce industry is poised to a $1.7 trillion value by the end of 2027, and platforms like Amazon and Shopify are leading the charge, supporting millions of merchants across the globe.
Powering nearly 30,000 ecommerce merchants is Staytuned, a global software company that acquires and builds ecommerce applications with a core focus on Shopify. Staytuned’s vision is simple—deliver tools that enable ecommerce merchants to scale faster and more efficiently than their peers.
Sifting through apps on Shopify’s app store is annoying, to begin with. Choosing what other software to use beyond Shopify to grow a business as a Shopify brand is even more challenging.
While helping out merchants with a suite of the revenue-generating tech stack, Staytuned also aims to reduce the time merchants spend trying to find and vet software that will work for them in the Shopify ecosystem and other high-growth ecommerce channels.
Serge Kassardjian and Randy Jimenez founded the company and brought on Lauralynn Drury to the founding team to help build the products and scale the strategy.
The two founders initially met in New York while working on different projects—Kassardjian was at Google building and growing the Google Play apps ecosystem. At the same time, Jimenez was the co-founder and CTO of Ollie, one of the country’s top pet food ecommerce brands.
Drury was their long-time go-to subject matter expert on ecommerce, having worked at well-known brands like Warby Parker and Faherty, and she joined the founding team to execute the vision. The group came together, complimenting each other on understanding how to navigate app stores, building ecommerce software, and identifying brand pain points to grow.
“We hope to become the Salesforce suite for ecommerce stores—an end-to-end suite to scale a fast-growing brand seamlessly within the Shopify ecosystem and beyond, where brands want to grow their presence and revenue,” said Kassardjian.
Staytuned, to date, including this round, has raised $46.5 million in a combination of equity and debt. TenOneTen, Rembrandt VC, Hawke Ventures, DragonX, FJ Labs, Interlace, Riverpark Ventures, Comma Capital, Kotti Capital, Alumni Ventures Group, Jason Finger, and notable angels participated in the new equity round. Tacora Capital led the debt funding. Previous investment rounds included Bowery Capital, WTI, Social Leverage, and others.
“This new funding enables us to acquire bigger apps, hire amazing talent, and scale faster than ever to become the foremost tech stack in the Shopify ecosystem,” noted Jimenez.
The investors are perfectly aligned with Staytuned’s vision. “We believe that consolidation of software in the ecommerce space is instrumental in helping brands scale. And Staytuned’s impressive track record in the ecommerce space and their demonstrated ability to execute, give us full confidence in their team’s capacity to meet brands’ needs,” said Eric Pakravan, Partner at TenOneTen Ventures.
“As the ecommerce industry rapidly gains momentum, we’ll see more such consolidation plays happening, and my job is to ensure that Staytuned is simply at the forefront of it all,” marked Kassardjian.
The company has made seven acquisitions and will continue to grow its suite by acquiring and building software in the Shopify ecosystem and beyond.
