Israeli e-commerce startup Yotpo joins the unicorn club after raising a $230M round led by Tiger Global & BVP

We covered Yotpo in the summer of last year after the Israeli-founded eCommerce marketing platform raised $75M in Series E funding to fuel marketing innovation and expand operations. The New York City-based startup narrowly missed our annual list of top 500 unicorn startups with a valuation of $1 Billion plus.

Today, Yotpo officially reaches unicorn status after the announcement of a $230 million in Series F funding that puts the company at a $1.4 billion valuation. Led by Bessemer Venture Partners and Tiger Global, the funding round also saw participation from existing investors Claltech Investment, Coin Ventures, Hanaco, Vertex Ventures, Vintage Investment Partners, among others.

Yotpo said that it has now exceeded $100 million in annual recurring revenue, with the SMS marketing product growing revenue by 170% last year, while the loyalty product saw its revenue nearly double. Big brands like Patagonia and Steve Madden use the platform. Princess Polly, one of the fastest-growing brands in the US market that serves women between 16 and 25, also uses the Yotpo platform.

Founded in 2011 by Omri Cohen and Tomer Tagrin, Yotpo provides brands with everything they need to win in a customer-centric world. Yotpo’s suite of integrated solutions for user-generated content marketing, loyalty, and referrals helps commerce companies accelerate growth by enabling advocacy and maximizing customer lifetime value.

“We have always believed that eCommerce would become the dominant form of shopping, but 2020 was an incredible acceleration. The eCommerce arena is the most important place to be. Everyone is selling everything online now, from entrepreneurs setting up shop in their basement to some of the largest brands in the world. But this also means it’s only going to get more difficult, expensive, and inefficient to market to customers,” said Tomer Tagrin, CEO & Cofounder, Yotpo.

“On top of having to come up with creative ways to stand out in a competitive and noisy space, eCommerce teams are bogged down by managing so many marketing point solutions,” says Tagrin. “Those solutions, with siloed customer data, force marketers to work harder and definitely not smarter. As a result, experiences are lagging behind and their customers are walking away.”

With the latest fundraise, Yotpo said it plans to double its product and R&D team to accelerate the rollout of its full platform experience, doing the behind-the-scenes work of connecting its products — which to date include Yotpo SMS Marketing, Yotpo Loyalty & Referrals, Yotpo Reviews, and Yotpo Visual UGC. This connected suite of solutions unlocks unified customer data that will allow brands to get more from every campaign and maximize their ROI.

Yotpo’s approach to integrated products on a single platform solved that for us,” said Kim Zorn, Head of Performance, Princess Polly. “With Yotpo, we can send review requests via SMS, reward loyalty points for reviews, ask 5-star reviewers to make referrals, send loyalty members tier-specific texts, and so much more. The Yotpo platform makes it so much easier to give our customers the absolute best experience with our brand — it’s brought our eCommerce dreams to life!”

VICI is a California-based fashion brand that’s growing at a meteoric rate, and the cult favorite is also using multiple Yotpo solutions to accelerate that growth. “We can create more connected and empowering experiences every step of the way, and engage our customers so much more personally and effectively. We’re excited to tap into the full potential of Yotpo’s platform,” said Aimee Dudum Colorado, Chief Merchandising & Marketing Officer, VICI.