Linnworks have today announced that Marlin Equity Partners have made a majority growth investment in Linnworks. The investment is set to scale Linnworks’ product capabilities and accelerate the company’s global expansion. Don’t worry, nothing will change as Linnworks CEO, Callum Campbell, will continue to lead day-to-day operations.
Founded in 2010, Linnworks enables brands and retailers, from small-and-medium to large enterprises, to grow and connect their online selling channels, automate product listings, orders, and inventory management, and establish total commerce control. In a recent study conducted by Linnworks, The Effortless Economy: A New Age of Retail, 76% of consumers cite convenience as a top priority when it comes to online shopping. From product discovery to delivery, Linnworks enables brands like Ford, Disney, and Reckitt to offer convenient customer experiences through the ability to sell wherever their customers are and manage their commerce operations in a centralized location.
“In order to capture every revenue opportunity, brands are recognizing the need to not only increase the number of channels they sell on but also integrate those channels for a frictionless, more personalized customer experience. With Marlin’s shared vision and support, we are excited to expand our offerings and deepen our capabilities to support our customers’ evolving needs and enable brands to scale.”
– Callum Campbell, CEO, Linnworks
Initial growth capital will be used to expand Linnworks’ product suite, advance its core platform, and develop deeper intelligence capabilities. The investment will also support Linnworks’ continued expansion in North America and Europe to further enable brands in these regions to maximize customer acquisition as omnichannel shopping continues to gain traction. In fact, according to Statista, the use of digital devices before or during shopping will influence 58 percent of sales by 2022. Furthermore, omnichannel shoppers spend 15% to 20% more than the average consumer, according to multiple studies.
“The commerce landscape is changing, and Linnworks is paving the way for scalable, agile, and resilient operations for brands and retailers in the future. Having been bootstrapped to date, Linnworks’ compelling value proposition and exceptional leadership has facilitated early success and positioned it as a strong market leader in the space, and we look forward to supporting the company in its next stage of growth.”
– Roland Pezzutto, Principal, Marlin
The announcement comes on the heels of rapid growth for Linnworks. Bootstrapped since its founding, Linnworks has reached over $9 billion in gross merchandise value (GMV) in the last 12 months alone. Additionally, over the past 18 months, the company has doubled its employee headcount and tripled its enterprise footprint as it acquired large household brands along its rapid growth trajectory. Linnworks operates globally in over 140 countries and is a major partner to commerce industry leaders including Shopify, Amazon, and eBay.
7 Responses
Headline should probably read : Linnworks prices set to soar following buyout by equity investment company
I’m definitely moving, unclear pricing that is linked to however much they feel they rinse you for. All I’ve ever wanted Linnworks to do is link my inventory to marketplaces and my postal services, and be reliable, the desktop app done this since day one. Linnworks.net is not an improvement for the customer, hence the reluctance in users switch to it. At every Linkworks live I’ve alway been amazed by how much “development” is always going on, who decided this is what was wanted or necessary for the users??? It’s just developers deciding that user would like this or that, once these new bell and whistles stuff is developed there is never any training on whats new or how to use it and get the most of this stuff???
This confirms for me the fact I should leave after 10 years:
“Additionally, over the past 18 months, the company has doubled its employee headcount and tripled its enterprise footprint as it acquired large household brands along its rapid growth trajectory”. In the last 18 month I’ve seen nothing and I am not aware of any new features that Linnworks has roled that might be beneficial to my business ( can anyone tell me what these are???). Also why am I paying for Linnworks to take risks acquiring large household brands????, I thought I was paying for an inventory management system not to fund VC acquisitions, of which I will be excepted to foot the bill and found via higher fee’s and see zero upside if they pay out???, or even higher bills to cover any acquisitions that go wrong.
Thomas, I completely agree – having been a Linnworks user for 7 years your experience is the same as ours. The .net version has simply been no benefit to us and most of the features they offer are simply not needed.
I have explained to them numerous times that it’s not a better experience but their answer was simply “no, it is much better” rather than listening to an actual long term customer!
Vast price increases that are frankly not warranted, sadly there is little to no competition and they still offer the widest variety of integrations so UK customers have little choice if they sell in a wide variety of markets and have a lot of shipping partners
Linnworks is used by most companies because they have been using it for a while and it works most of the time, we have been using for 10+ years and it is pretty much the same now as it was 10 years ago, linnworks forums (long since deleted I believe) used to list problems on a daily basis about things that were broken or how bad linnworks.net (yet the staff always tell you how great .net is and how everyone is using it!) we will move to something else if we see any price rises, we are only currently using as they back tracked on the massive price increases that they tried to implement about 2 years ago, they blamed the intended price rises on users that were “not using it properly” and had the cheek to have the intention to charge a fee for your FBA orders.
We have also lost a lot of money over the years because of the poor implementation of merged orders and cancelled orders, I recommend you don’t look back at your processed orders as it will make you feel sick when you realise that you have dispatched orders that have been cancelled/ merged/refunded.
Small seller, switched to one stop orders. Desktop app, fair pricing, and it works.
Back up to USB hard drive and that automatically uploads to google drive.
Left when they tripled /quadrupled prices the first time.
It does couriers, inventory etc fine, Also you can use Click and Drop Portal or any dispatch system use that to send tracking which is what I do and it will still download orders already marked as dispatch to sync your inventory. Or you can use the app to sent dispatch and tracking. Well worth a looks !
We’ve been with Linnworks for nearly 10 years and we’ve just been given our renewal quotation for Linnworks – the initial quote was a 300% increase. Although they’ve offered us some additional discounts, it’s still a huge leap and will have a serious effect on our business.
I’m therefore seriously considering a switch, sadly, so just wondering what others are using?
Whilst allowing Marlin Equity Partners equitable access to your valued sales data.