Browser-based website-creation service PageCloud announced that it has closed a $4 million Series A, bringing the company’s funding total to date to about $8.5 million. Participants in the round include early-stage venture-capital firm Accomplice, trade-finance agency Export Development Canada and angel investors like Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke, former SalesForce VP Avanish Sahai, and former LinkedIn VP Ellen Levy.
The startup formally launched its cloud-based content management system (CMS) platform in November 2015 after a successful debut as a finalist in the Startup Battlefield at Disrupt NY 2015.
PageCloud works like a CMS, runs in the cloud and includes powerful design editing tools to help users customize and build exactly the site they want. One of PageCloud’s most advanced features is the drag-and-drop function, which they have taken to a completely different level.
So far, PageCloud has integrated with over 60 popular web widgets, including e-commerce, social, forums and galleries, added in-app domain purchasing and will soon be launching a branded Gmail service.
The company has added a series of themes so that even those who don’t quite have an eye for design can more easily build a beautiful webpage. And, once users have selected a theme, they can use the service’s simple built-in editor to control every pixel of the design.
When we provided an update about PageCloud early in 2016, the service had rapidly grown from 12,000 paid users in 70 countries to 14,000 in 100 countries in just two months. Now, the company boasts that over 15,000 users from 130 countries use PageCloud to build their online presence.
PageCloud founder and CEO Craig Fitzpatrick tells TechCrunch that, while the company went to market offering huge ROI gains for agencies, he was surprised at just how much of his customer base was coming from the DIY crowd.
Ultimately, PageCloud wants to create a service that makes building a website as simple as sketching with pen and paper and though there are many competitors — Wix and Squarespace among others — the startup does have some of the slickest UX we’ve seen.
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