PayPal, Carlyle Put $100M to Expand German Digital Commerce Platform Shopware

Shopware announced Tuesday (Feb. 8) that it has raised $100 million in a funding round, with investments coming from PayPal and global investment firm Carlyle.

Shopware’s services include an omnichannel digital commerce platform, with features supporting business-to-consumer (B2C), direct-to-consumer (D2C), business-to-business (B2B) and services-driven business models.

Per the release, Carlyle will use its experience in digital commerce to drive international growth, expand its product suite and execute more strategies.

Shopware had seen growth in the last few years, and its platform had grown to almost $20 billion last year. The new funding will go toward growth and product innovation, helping the German company expand into new markets.

The Shopware tech comes with application programming interface (API)-first models and lets merchants scale while making customer experiences. The platform is focused on a number of services like mid-market merchants, as well as multinational ones like Philips, Jägermeister and Aston Martin.

“This funding will help us supercharge our international growth – enabling Shopware to capture the significant opportunities ahead of us,” Shopware co-CEO Stefan Hamann said in the release. “As a business, we are proud to have been profitable from day one, and are excited to work closely alongside Carlyle and PayPal to build on Shopware’s positioning in the long term.”

Last year, Carlyle was also in talks to take over Metro Bank as interest rates in the U.K. were on the rise. Metro Bank was “engaged” on the talks, though there was no specifics at the time in late 2021.

See also: Carlyle Could Take Metro Bank Private

Metro Bank went public in 2016. Two years ago, it was caught up with a loan misreporting scandal, which saw the CEO and the chairman of the bank’s board of directors both ousted.

The company had its market capitalization fall, and CEO Dan Frumkin said he was working to cut down on the bank’s reliance on fixed-term savings accounts and low-risk mortgages. Instead, he wanted to focus on home loans and business debt in an effort to make higher returns.