Shopware Raises its First Outside Funding: $100M from PayPal and Carlyle

Shopware, which provides a set of open source tools to power online shopping experiences for some 100,000 mid-sized and larger brands, is announcing $100 million in funding to capture the opportunity.

“This funding will help us supercharge our international growth – enabling Shopware to capture the significant opportunities ahead of us,” said Stefan Hamann, co-CEO of Shopware, in a statement.

“As a business, we are proud to have been profitable from day one, and are excited to work closely alongside Carlyle and PayPal to build on Shopware’s positioning in the long term.”

Shopware is not disclosing its valuation but notes that Carlyle and PayPal are coming on as minority investors.

Sebastian and Stefan Hamann the brothers who co-founded Shopware in the modest (population: around 7,000) town of Schöppingen in the north west of Germany near the Dutch border — will retain a significant majority stake in Shopware, the company said in a statement. They will also stay on as co-CEOs.

Shopware’s sweet spot up to now has been serving mid-market companies and brands that are not necessarily digitally-native businesses but very much have had to take on digital channels to keep up with the times and how consumers discover and shop for goods and services today.