Jungle Scout Announces $110 Million in Growth Capital to Empower Ecommerce Brands

Funding led by Summit Partners and Jungle Scout CEO Greg Mercer supports company's continued growth as Jungle Scout builds upon significant market momentum and announces acquisition of Amazon advertising technology company Downstream Impact.

AUSTIN, Texas, March 4, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Jungle Scout, a leading all-in-one platform for selling on Amazon, today announced it has raised $110 million in growth capital, led by Summit Partners and Jungle Scout Founder & CEO Greg Mercer. The capital supports Jungle Scout's continued growth as the company expands its technology suite with the acquisition of Seattle-based Downstream Impact, a leading Amazon advertising tech company, extends its SaaS platform to support Walmart, and continues to scale its capabilities in advertising and full-scale ecommerce brand management.

"As an Amazon seller myself, I started Jungle Scout in 2015 to help other entrepreneurs find financial freedom on Amazon. We've grown profitably since day one, and we believe the opportunity only continues to grow," said Mercer. "Since 2015, we've worked to expand our product capabilities to help businesses manage every step of their selling journey from product research to launching and scaling their business ventures. Today, Jungle Scout serves a global customer base of entrepreneurs and brands focused on building a business on Amazon and beyond. We're continuing to deliver on our mission to empower the world's brands with essential insights to understand and sell in the evolving ecommerce marketplace."

Accelerating Momentum

As the world continues to turn to ecommerce, Jungle Scout and the businesses the company serves are experiencing strong growth.

• Today, Jungle Scout supports more than $8 billion in Amazon revenue and serves over 500,000 brands and entrepreneurs who are working to build successful businesses on Amazon.
• The company's powerful data engine processes data from more than 500 million Amazon products, offering sales, keyword, and other trend insights to help brands, entrepreneurs, and agencies identify opportunities and sell successfully in the Amazon channel.
• In June 2020, Jungle Scout introduced Cobalt, a market intelligence and product insights platform built to help enterprise brands win the Amazon channel. Cobalt processes more than 1 billion data points daily, and is designed to provide powerful intelligence, including extensive data on market share, segment and trend analysis, competitive insights, content optimization, and more.
• The company continues to invest in future ecommerce platform growth, including expansion to Walmart.com. 
• Today, Jungle Scout employs more than 200 team members across 16 countries and expects headcount to double in 2021.
• The company also opened its second and third offices in China, in Hangzhou and Qingdao, in addition to its office in Shenzhen. 

We believe Summit Partners' investment underscores the essential role Jungle Scout's powerful technology plays in helping both established brands and aspiring entrepreneurs build successful ecommerce businesses.

"Jungle Scout was one of the first companies to identify the opportunity to provide SaaS-based tools to help businesses and brands expand their ecommerce footprints on Amazon and beyond, and the company has built on this leadership position over the last several years," said Neil Roseman, Technologist-in-Residence at Summit Partners and Jungle Scout Board Director. Roseman served as Vice President of Technology at Amazon from 1998 to 2007, where he helped lead the software development underlying many of Amazon's early marketplace and commerce capabilities. "We believe Jungle Scout's technology is robust and highly scalable, designed to help a company to grow as the Amazon third-party selling ecosystem has expanded. We believe the addition of Downstream Impact will add to this product and engineering strength, and we are thrilled to be a part of the company's growth journey."

Expanding Platform: Jungle Scout Acquires Downstream Impact

The addition of Amazon advertising software leader Downstream Impact ("Downstream") will support Jungle Scout's continued focus on providing essential data-driven insights to help brands and agencies excel in ecommerce. Downstream manages more than $250 million per year in Amazon advertising spend for some of the world's largest brands, including HP, Bic, and several leading global CPG companies. Its artificial intelligence-powered automation tools are designed to help brands optimize their advertising campaigns and glean insights to more effectively compete within the Amazon channel.

"Advertising is a critical growth lever for brands that are seeking to be truly competitive on Amazon, but it's also an undeniable pain point," said Mercer. "Jungle Scout sought out the absolute best AI-powered advertising technology to add to our platform. We evaluated dozens of tools, and Downstream emerged as a clear leader for its capabilities in managing and optimizing Amazon advertising programs."

Downstream was founded in 2017 by former Amazon employees Connor Folley (CEO) and Salim Hamed (CTO), both of whom worked closely with the Amazon advertising business and well-understood the need to provide insights for brands seeking to optimize advertising spend and stay competitive in a fast-changing ecommerce environment.

Advertising is Amazon's fastest-growing business, representing nearly $21.5 billion in annual revenue in 2020, a 66% year-over-year increase.¹

A Jungle Scout study of nearly 5,000 Amazon sellers reveals that 75% use at least one form of Amazon pay-per-click (PPC) advertising and that, for many, PPC is a critical investment area for 2021. But, sellers also cite managing PPC bids as a significant business challenge; Jungle Scout data indicates that 62% of sellers are concerned about increasing advertising costs on Amazon.

"We've watched Amazon's advertising business grow faster than Google and Facebook combined over the past year, but effectively advertising on Amazon is challenging," said Downstream Co-Founder and CEO Connor Folley. "Downstream provides ad performance insight within the context of a brand's costs and budgets, giving a more comprehensive perspective designed to optimize ad campaigns. As part of the Jungle Scout platform, we believe we can help brands connect these insights to enhance their ecommerce strategies."

¹Advertising revenue ("Other" revenue, predominantly advertising) from Amazon Investor Relations

About Jungle Scout

Jungle Scout is the leading all-in-one platform for selling on Amazon, supporting more than $8 billion in annual Amazon revenue. Founded in 2015 as the first Amazon product research tool, Jungle Scout today features a full suite of best-in-class business management solutions and powerful market intelligence resources to help entrepreneurs and brands manage their ecommerce businesses. Jungle Scout is headquartered in Austin, Texas and supports 10 global Amazon marketplaces.

About Summit Partners

Founded in 1984, Summit Partners is a global alternative investment firm that is currently managing more than $23 billion in capital dedicated to growth equity, fixed income and public equity opportunities. Summit invests across growth sectors of the economy and has invested in more than 500 companies in technology, healthcare and other growth industries. Summit has partnered with more than 30 companies across the e-commerce and consumer landscape. Summit maintains offices in North America and Europe and invests in companies around the world. For more information, please see www.summitpartners.com or follow on LinkedIn.

In the United States of America, Summit Partners operates as an SEC-registered investment advisor. In the United Kingdom, this document is issued by Summit Partners LLP, a firm authorized and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority. Summit Partners LLP is a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales with registered number OC388179 and its registered office is at 11-12 Hanover Square, London, W1S 1JJ, UK. This document is intended solely to provide information regarding Summit Partners' potential financing capabilities for prospective portfolio companies.

Contact:
Leslie Termuhlen
press@junglescout.com
513-600-3353

Related Images

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Downstream Impact
Downstream Impact is an Amazon advertising software platform which allows brands to better measure, manage, and optimize their presence on Amazon.

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Connor Folley and Salim Hamed
Connor and Salim co-founded Downstream in 2017.

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Greg Mercer
Greg Mercer is the founder and CEO of Jungle Scout.