E-commerce businesses don’t always build great companies: they can be huge in revenue, but remain lean in numbers. However, 8fig believes that these companies still need to acquire the expertise of, say, a chief financial officer, but in a way that works for their business.
When Yaron Shapira, Assaf Dagan and Roei Yellin started 8fig in 2020, the company, based in Austin and Israel, focused on providing lending and supply chain management tools to e-commerce businesses that struggling to manage their cash flow as they grow their businesses.
However, after raising $50 million in 2021, CEO Shapira said that e-commerce is beginning to shift from growth to profit methods as the cost of customer acquisition increases and changes. of privacy changes the economy of the unit.
Now 8fig is building a “C-suite” for e-commerce companies, CEO Shapira told TechCrunch. AI CFO is the first new product, which provides cash flow planning. When the company is small, planning is easier, but when the business grows in importance and becomes more complex, which is Shapira said that companies miss cash flow management.
“Usually these types of companies don’t have a CFO, someone who actually does the financials and all the calculations, instead they use external accountants to help them,” Shapira said. “This means there is a big gap in their planning.”
8fig co-founders, from left, Yaron Shapira, Roei Yellin, and Assaf Dagan. Image Credits: See Photography
AI CFO offers a self-serve web application where companies can do their cash flow planning automatically, and then when they need it, get business continuity planning from 8fig.
Since its inception three years ago, 8fig has provided over $500 million in funding to online sellers. By 2022, it has increased its customer base and annual revenue by 900% and 800%, respectively. In the same period of time, the company also tripled the number of its employees and released a mobile app version and cargo management and payment functionality.
Now the company has flushed $140 million in new funding that closed in April, $40 million in Series B equity and $100 million in a credit facility, to work on a full AI executive suite that will include an AI chief marketing officer and AI chief operating officer. parts later this year.
The fund was led by Koch Disruptive Technologies with participation from existing investors Battery Ventures, LocalGlobe, Hetz, the Jesselson family and Silicon Valley Bank, now a division of First Citizens Bank. Shapira said this is an “up” round in terms of valuation and brings 8fig’s total funding to $196.5 million.
“In these turbulent times, technology can help e-commerce businesses in their planning, so you’ll see a lot of effort from us,” Shapira said. “Helping our clients with an AI CFO is good, but not perfect. If we can help them with their marketing and logistics, it will be more important. We will invest in these areas to help our clients create do a good job themselves and be successful next year and the next two years, which is the future we are looking at.
