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Blog

We’re Not Building a Unicorn – We’re Building a Great Company With Great People

Philippe Corrot & Adrien Nussenbaum - September 22, 2020
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It all started on a cold winter morning: January 6, 2012. Picture the two of us, with a bit less grey hair and the support of a few early visionaries, sitting in a tiny 150 square foot office on Avenue Victor Hugo in Paris.

This “clan,” still together today and reinforced by the hundreds of great people who have joined us since that day in January, was brought together by a common passion and trust in one another. All of us shared a strong conviction: that the world was entering a new economic revolution, driven by tech innovation and increased online connectivity.

We knew that traditional business models would soon stretch to their breaking point as organizations tried to compete for speed and scale against emerging platform businesses like Amazon, Alibaba, and Uber.  And we wanted to help.

It was clear to us that businesses across the globe were in need of an exceptional best-of-breed technology solution – one that would enable them to launch and operate winning platform businesses of their own, at scale.

Victor Hugo himself said that “Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come.”  Well, the time is now!

After 8 years of hypergrowth, expansion to every corner of the globe, and billions of sales generated for our customers, we are very excited and proud to announce that Mirakl has raised $300M in Series D funding led by Permira Advisers, with participation from existing investors Bain Capital Ventures, 83North, Felix Capital and Elaia Partners who have always believed in our vision and supported us from day 1.

Why raise a new round now, just 18 months after we raised $70M in Series C funding?

  1. The platform model is more critical now than ever before. In the last 6 months, we’ve witnessed the world change forever, and businesses urgently need more scalable, flexible resilient business models. Only platforms and marketplaces provide the improved productivity, agility, and flexibility that will enable them to thrive in an increasingly digital world.

  2. Only Mirakl has the solution these businesses need. Mirakl has successfully created a new category and established itself as the clear leader thanks to the quality of our technology, the passion and expertise of our teams, and the strength of our growing partner ecosystem.

  3. Demand for Mirakl is growing exponentially. We have witnessed unprecedented levels of demand from both traditional businesses eager to fight back and emerging digital natives changing the game. This trust in our vision and solutions has made a remarkable impact on our business – and it has pushed us further into hypergrowth.

Mirakl is facing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to continue to elevate and lead this movement. This gives us the chance to continue building a truly differentiated company that serves the visionary and fearless organizations who trust us, with whom we are changing the status quo. We’re proud to partner with these Platform Pioneers – and with the visionary individuals within these organizations that bring the entrepreneurial spirit to life.

How do we plan to do this? First, we will continue to invest massively in our technology. We plan to hire more than 300 engineers in the next 3 years to focus on:

  • Expanding the Mirakl Connect ecosystem to realize Mirakl’s vision of becoming the central hub and platform for digital marketplace operators, sellers, and partners;

  • Leveraging all our data to enhance our AI and become more efficient and more powerful for our customers;

  • Continuously enhancing our B2B product features to address ever-more complex use cases and the trillion dollar B2B marketplaces market;

  • Building on our first mover advantage to address all types of platform business models and value-added services.

Second, we plan to significantly scale our sales and customer success organizations to address the global demand for marketplace solutions and support our customers in establishing winning strategies from the start.

But most importantly, we hope to grow even faster while staying true to our core values. Mirakl exists to help businesses who understand that the platform revolution is happening now and is their path forward. To achieve this, we will need to continue to build fantastic teams of people who want to innovate by being truly inspirational, who believe in (hard) teamwork, who never say it’s not their job – and most importantly, who choose to work at Mirakl because they are given the opportunity to go above and beyond. Only these shared values will bring our customers and partners the long-term satisfaction and empowerment they seek.

Ultimately, while our childhood is far behind us (and we don’t believe in unicorns anymore), we do believe, like the famous philosopher Hegel, that “nothing great in the world has ever been accomplished without passion.

Starting up is hard to do, and creating great companies is first and foremost a team sport. What we’re selling is the collective intelligence that directly results from the relentless endeavors of wonderful people. So, on this exceptional day for Mirakl, we are thankful for the support and efforts of the passionate Mirakl Workers and Platform Pioneers who have made this journey so far possible.

To them, and to you, we say – it is only the beginning. So stay tuned for more ;) – Adrien & Philippe

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Philippe Corrot & Adrien Nussenbaum,

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