Swell builds headless commerce infrastructure—APIs, storefronts and a dashboard—that separates storefront front ends from back-end data so merchants can update and scale without disrupting the customer experience. The company started as a pure API for developers but added tools and a free community plan to help businesses get up and running quickly. Over the past year Swell grew revenue fivefold and expanded its customer base from 30 to over 1,000 by the end of 2021. Swell plans to use new funding to grow its team from 30 to about 100 in the next 12 months and to accelerate product development, including an app ecosystem and a configurable database for third-party apps and customer-owned data. The idea originated about a decade ago and Swell got off the ground in 2021, when it raised a $3.4M seed round. Swell offers a headless commerce backend designed to support flexible, non-catalog business models by exposing API access to every component and providing native subscription support and unlimited product attributes. The platform positions itself as a "future-proof backend" that aims to give the flexibility of open-source approaches without requiring customers to maintain their own codebase or databases. Swell supports varied use cases including marketplaces (Spinn), a B2B vacuum pump marketplace (Nowvac), and DTC retail (Great Heights). The company says its users include both developers and nontechnical marketers and ops people who want control over systems without deep engineering resources. Swell was founded by Eric Ingram (CEO), Stefan Kende, Dave Loneragan, Joshua Voydik and Mark Regal. The startup announced a $3.4 million seed financing to support its growth and product development.

Total raised

$23M

Funding rounds

2

Latest round

Series A

Latest activity

Jan 2022