Germany and Palo Alto-based m-commerce platform Shopgate has made its first acquisition: The Creathor Ventures and Northcap-backed company has acquired Magento developer MagCorp for an undisclosed fee. The move — which, since it’s buying developer talent and expertise, might best be categorised as an acqui-hire — will see MagCorp’s four developers join Shopgate’s existing 132 strong team at its campus in Butzbach, Germany.
Shopgate lets merchants build a mobile store-front using its platform, enabling them to be up and running with either a native app or browser-based m-commerce offering. Where it claims to beat much of the competition is that it integrates with popular web-based e-commerce and shopping cart provider APIs, including, of course, Magento, which means that Shopgate is pretty much plug-and-play with most of the online store backends that retailers are already using.
That’s where today’s small acquisition comes into play. MagCorp’s team of four — Alexander Wesselburg, André Kraus, Stephan Recknagel and Peter Liebig — bring with them a wealth of experience working with the Magento platform.
Projects they’ve previously worked on include Glossybox, the Samwer brothers’ Birchbox clone, where they are said to have built the Magento-based e-commerse side of the site so that it could handle reoccurring payments needed by the subscription service. Members of the MagCorp team have also worked for venture-backed German clothing retailer Luxodo, online car dealership giant Autoda, and online sporting goods retailer mysportgroup.
Shopgate plans to use this expertise to bolster its Magento integration. Specifically, to extend the Magento integration they already offer and “start focusing on Magento Enterprise”, Shopgate’s newly-hired COO Wladimir Baranoff-Rossine tells me.
Shopgate also says is isn’t ruling out further acquisitions as the company continues to grow. It currently claims over 5,200 registered online shops using its platform, disclosing that more than 4,200 shopping apps had been created for iPhone, iPad and Android as of November last year.
“Shopgate has a team of 132 but is looking to grow to over 200 by the end of the year,” adds Baranoff-Rossine. Developers are needed for the startup’s backend and apps, but also “to handle more shopping carts”.
In June Shopgate told TechCrunch it had raised $7 million in Series B funding led by Danish VC firm Northcap, and original backer Creathor Ventures out of Germany, bringing total funding to $9.4 million.