Magento Commerce Launches as Independent Company Backed by the Permira Funds

CAMPBELL, CA--(Marketwired - Nov 2, 2015) - Magento Commerce, the leading provider of open omnichannel innovation, announced today that it has launched as an independent company, backed by the Permira funds. The launch marks the close of the acquisition of Magento Commerce Technologies by companies owned by the Permira funds from eBay, Inc. Mark Lavelle, formerly senior vice president at eBay Enterprise, will lead the company as its new CEO. 

"Magento is at the forefront of a tremendous market opportunity. As an independent company, with the full support and global resources of the Permira funds, we are poised to accelerate our leadership as innovators, creating products that drive exceptional experiences across every stage of the commerce lifecycle," said Mark Lavelle, CEO of Magento Commerce. "During our time as a division of eBay, Inc., we grew revenue fivefold, made significant investments in our core platform and added innovative mobile and omnichannel products. Now, we will build on this momentum -- continuing to innovate with speed and at scale while we put renewed focus on expanding our market leadership with stronger emphasis on our global network of system integrators, technology partners and developer community."

"We are excited to support Mark and his outstanding team as they build on Magento's product leadership and rich ecosystem," said Phil Guinand, Principal at Permira. "Given the Permira funds' experience backing some of the world's leading brands and retailers, we know first-hand how Magento provides these companies with distinct advantages over their competitors in terms of owning the customer experience, future-proofing their business by leveraging the power of an open architecture, and achieving superior ROI from their omnichannel investments. As the importance of the digital commerce experience expands over the next decade we believe Magento will continue to be the partner of choice for the world's leading brands and retailers."

The flagship open-source Magento platform is already the worldwide leader in eCommerce, powering more than 240,000 sites globally and supporting over $50 billion in gross merchandise volume annually. Magento is the dominant platform to the Internet Retailer Top 1000, and the Internet Retailer B2B 300 counting more than double the number of retailers using the platform to the next closest competitor, as well as to the Internet Retailer Hot 100 which represents retailers who deliver the most innovative and best new ideas in commerce. Additionally, Forrester Research recently cited Magento as a Strong Performer "blending strong strategy with a maturing product" among the eight most significant B2B commerce suite vendors in its industry benchmark report, "The Forrester Wave™: B2B Commerce Suites, Q2 2015." Magento was also cited as a Challenger in the 2014 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce.

Emerging as an independent company, Magento Commerce boasts a strong portfolio of open-source and cloud-based omnichannel solutions designed to disrupt the legacy technologies that have siloed the consumer experience between digital and physical:

• Magento Community Edition is a modular and customizable eCommerce platform that ideally suits the needs of small businesses, and provides core commerce capabilities that can be extended though a wealth of extensions on the Magento Marketplace.
• The Magento Enterprise Edition is a high performance, scalable eCommerce solution for fast-growing and large businesses. Magento Enterprise Edition provides a rich, robust feature set that can be tailored in order to accelerate business growth across digital and physical channels.
• Magento Commerce Order Management is a product suite at the core of retail distribution, connecting supply and demand side channels, gathering information from each and facilitating the choices for each individual order. Whether integrated with Magento Enterprise Edition or stand-alone, this modular, cloud-based suite of software, tools, and services, is designed to manage your orders, inventory and fulfillment.
• Magento Retail Commerce is a product suite designed to provide a more engaging and relevant experience within the retail environment. Magento's Point-of-Service gives store associates a mobile platform to deliver on all of a customer's in store needs, from commerce to clienteling. Magento Retail Commerce blurs the line between online and "offline" in a way the world has never seen before.
• The Magento Marketplace is the largest commerce application marketplace. The Marketplace provides merchants with a curated user experience for easy discovery of high quality products and services, while providing developers with a vibrant Magento community and the tools and marketing resources to monetize their application business.

About Magento Commerce
Trusted by more than 240,000 businesses worldwide, Magento Commerce is the leading provider of open omnichannel innovation to retailers, brands and branded manufacturers across retail B2C and B2B industries. In addition to its flagship open source eCommerce platform, Magento Commerce boasts a strong portfolio of cloud-based omnichannel solutions empowering merchants to successfully integrate digital and physical shopping experiences. With over $50B in gross merchandise volume transacted on the platform annually, Magento Commerce is the dominant provider to the Internet Retailer Top 1000, counting more than double the clients to the next closest competitor, and to the Internet Retailer Hot 100. Magento Commerce is supported by a vast global network of solution and technology partners, a highly active global developer community and the largest eCommerce marketplace for extensions available for download on the Magento Marketplace. More information can be found at www.magento.com.

About Permira
Permira is a global investment firm that finds and backs successful businesses with ambition. Founded in 1985, the firm advises funds with a total committed capital of approximately $28 billion. The Permira funds make long-term investments in companies with the objective of transforming their performance and driving sustainable growth. In the past 30 years, the Permira funds have made over 200 private equity investments in five key sectors: Consumer, Financial Services, Healthcare, Industrials and Technology. Permira employs over 200 people in 14 offices across North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. For more information visit: www.permira.com.

Permira established itself in North America in 2002 and today has offices in New York and Menlo Park. The Permira funds have a long track record of successfully investing in technology companies around the world including Informatica, Magento Commerce, eBay Marketing Solutions, NDS, Genesys, Ancestry.com, TeamViewer, Renaissance Learning, Metalogix, LegalZoom.com, and Teraco. Since 1997, over 33% of the Permira funds' investments have been in the core sector of Technology.