Abe’s Market Raises New $5 Million Venture Round Led By Carmel Ventures
- Created on Thursday, 21 March 2013 10:21
Abe's Market, the online destination for discovering and experiencing the best natural and organic products, today announced the closing of $5 million in new financing led by Carmel Ventures. The round also includes contributions from current investors Index Ventures and Accel Partners, and new investors Beringea and OurCrowd.
With twice the selection of Whole Foods in several key categories, Abe's Market has become an authority for helping people live a better, more conscientious lifestyle. In addition to its ample collection of food, baby, home, beauty, pet and fashion products, the site is constantly rolling out new, innovative features aimed at revolutionizing the natural living and online sectors.
Just unveiled, for example, is a new feature called Abe's Qualities, a first of its kind system that allows shoppers to customize their shopping experience based on what's most important to their diet or lifestyle. Months of deep analytical work, combined with insight from merchants and thought-leaders in the space, allowed Abe's Market to determine how each of the 11,000+ products offered on the site fit into 220+ qualities, including USDA Certified Organic, BPA-free, Paleo diet friendly, locally-sourced, gluten-free, Certified Fair Trade, vegan, kosher, recycled and many more. Users can filter any item by these particular qualities to make quicker, more efficient buying decisions, and simultaneously learn about how they benefit their health and the planet. Abe's Qualities is unlike anything else in ecommerce, and is a step towards the goal of creating a more humanized online shopping experience.
"Abe's Market stands for much more than just a business ... we represent a way of life," said Richard Demb, co-founder and CEO of Abe's Market. "By providing a personal connection with the merchant and their products online, we are improving the buying experience and helping consumers enjoy a healthier lifestyle. This new round of funding from leading investors is a testament to the strength of what we have built and the future ahead of us."
Abe's Market is using the new funds to fuel its growth as an authority in the green and natural space and help customers live a better lifestyle. In addition to moving its headquarters to Chicago this past October, the company is making key investments towards marketing, talent acquisition, technology enhancements, content creation and product expansion.
"We are excited to lead the round and support the founding team and existing investors in their goal of making Abe's Market the market leader in this fast growing multibillion dollar space," said Avi Zeevi, Co-Founder and General Partner at Carmel Ventures. "Shopping at Abe's Market is an enjoyable, personalized and unique experience that will lead it to become the preferred site for natural and organic product shoppers."
About Abe's Market
Abe's Market is the leading online destination for discovering and experiencing the best organic and natural products available. Founded in 2009 by serial entrepreneur Richard Demb and former Fortune 500 marketing executive Jon Polin, Abe's Market gives healthy, environmentally conscious, and lifestyle savvy consumers a place to find incredible food, baby, hygiene, home, fashion and pet care items. The site is home to thousands of green-minded vendors, each of whom uses the platform to share the stories behind their products to help better connect with Abe's customers and stand out to other like-minded vendors. In return, consumers get a better understanding of the health and environmental benefits each product delivers, and vendors have a business network they can tap into for new business and potential partnerships.
From its headquarters in Chicago, IL, Abe's Market is working to combine the experience of a local, organic market with the convenience of an online superstore. For more information, visit www.abesmarket.com
About Carmel Ventures
With over $600 million currently under management, several successful exits, and a growing portfolio of promising start-ups, Carmel is among Israel's top-tier venture capital funds. Carmel's investments are focused primarily on early stage companies in the fields of Software, Internet, Digital Media, Communications, Semiconductors, and Consumer Electronics. Founded in 2000 by pioneers and leaders of the Israeli high tech industry, Carmel provides significant capital and active, hands-on support through the growth cycle of its portfolio companies and is recognized as a true company building fund in Israel. Carmel, headquartered in Herzliya, Israel enjoys a worldwide network of industry, strategic and investment resources.
Carmel is an affiliate of the Viola Group, the largest technology focused Private Equity group in Israel with $2B under management. For more information, please visit www.carmelventures.com.
About Index Ventures
Index Ventures is a leading global venture capital firm active in technology and biotechnology investing since 1996. From its offices in Geneva, London and San Francisco, Index Ventures loves to discover and support the most entrepreneurial teams wherever they are looking to build market defining global businesses. For more information on its investments, from seed through to growth stage, please visitwww.indexventures.com.
About Accel Partners
Founded in 1983, Accel Partners has a long history of partnering with outstanding entrepreneurs
and management teams to build world-class businesses. Accel today invests globally using dedicated teams and market-specific strategies for local geographies, with offices in Palo Alto, California, New York City, London and Bangalore, as well as in China via its partnership with IDG-Accel. Accel has helped entrepreneurs build over 300 successful companies, many of which have defined their categories, including 99designs, Actuate, AdMob, Agile Software, Alfresco, Angry Birds (Rovio), Atlassian, BBN, Bonobos, Braintree, Brightcove, Cloudera, ComScore, Diapers.com (Quidsi), Dropbox, Etsy, Exclusively.in, Facebook, Flipkart, Fusion-IO, Gameforge, GlamMedia, Groupon,Imperva,Infinera,Interwoven, IronPlanet, JBoss, Kayak, Lookout, Macromedia, metroPCS, MoPub, Myntra, OPOWER, Polycom/PictureTel, Playfish, Portal Software, QlikTech, Rapt, Real Networks, Redback, Responsys, Riverbed, Spotify, Squarespace, SunRun,Trulia, UUNet, Veritas,Walmart.com,Webroot,Wonga, XenSource and Zimbra. For more information, please visit the Accel Partners web site at www.accel.com.
About Beringea
Beringea offers advice, guidance and capital to support growing businesses. With offices in the U.S. and UK, Beringea's award-winning team offers its portfolio companies the resources to develop strategy, evaluate growth opportunities, and build value in a range of sectors, including health care and life sciences, clean technology, advanced manufacturing, media, Internet technologies and specialized consumer products. Beringea is the co-manager of Michigan Growth Capital Partners Funds and the Michigan Growth Capital Partners Mezzanine Fund in the U.S., as well as the ProVen VCT family of funds in the UK, among others. For more information, visit www.beringea.com.
About OurCrowd
OurCrowd is an equity-based crowdfunding platform, built exclusively for a select group of accredited investors to provide funding for Israeli (and later global) start-ups. Membership in the community is vetted and offered only to people who meet the accreditation criteria and come with a reference. Investors who are accepted into the community will be expected to make at least one investment per year. The initial focus of OurCrowd is the dynamic early stage funding market in Israel and only companies that have passed a rigorous due diligence process will be added to the platform. All term sheets are pre-negotiated and OurCrowd's management company and affiliated mentor network leads the investment with their own money. It is anticipated that OurCrowd will be one of the first Israel focused equity-based members platform to launch and one of the world's only accredited investor only platforms. For more information, go to http://www.ourcrowd.com/.
