Commerce content management platform 10CMS receives £1.6 million from Octopus

Octopus Investments has announced an investment of £1.6 million into Curlet Limited, trading as 10CMS, a leading commerce content management platform for global brands and retailers. The 10CMS platform enables retailers to deliver consistent, differentiated retail experiences across digital platforms, via the most advanced mobile devices and web browsers.

10CMS's commerce content management platform provides online retailers with a single, intuitive toolset with which to quickly add interactive content modules to existing eCommerce web sites. Modules such as Carousels, Collections, Buy the Look and Shop Landing Pages enable retailers to merchandise from existing media with the addition of 'Select and Buy' options, and to showcase more products on high traffic web pages. As a result, 10CMS customers report significant improvements in conversion rates (up more than 50%) and average order values (20% or more), as well as a tenfold reduction in costs.

As a 'Software as a Service' (SaaS) based solution, the 10CMS platform is engineered to scale quickly to accommodate thousands of customers globally. 10CMS is the first commerce content management platform to extend from web sites into mobile devices and emerging online commerce platforms like Facebook. With support for emerging standards like HTML5 built in, 10CMS is well-placed to capitalise on the explosion in demand for interactive eCommerce merchandising content.

The investment provided by Octopus will enable the company to develop its product and build its sales and marketing team.

Jo Oliver from Octopus, commented: "All websites are facing the ever increasing challenges of attracting customers; keeping them engaged; and, most importantly, monetising them. 10CMS products enable its eCommerce clients to easily and dynamically update their websites in-house, thereby helping address these challenges and delivering immediate revenue and cost benefits. The team at 10CMS have done fantastically well to develop market leading technology which already has impressive commercial traction, and we are looking forward to partnering them to significant further growth, both in the UK and internationally."

James Brooke, 10CMS co-founder and CEO, commented: "Online sales continue to grow by 20% annually, so this is an exciting time to be working with leading global brands and retailers to deliver an innovative customer experience. It is great to have an experienced investor like Octopus on board as we now have the resources and first class expertise to grow 10CMS into a global force."

Jo Oliver and Scott Barham led the deal on behalf of Octopus. Funds were provided from the Octopus Titan VCT funds, the Eureka EIS Portfolio Service and the Octopus Venture Partners.

Octopus was advised by Shoosmiths (Legal), Datapoint (Commercial Due Diligence) and FD Solutions (Financial Due Diligence). 10CMS was advised by First Columbus, Marriott Harrison LLP, Holohan Solicitors (Cork), Sadlier Reilly Capital, and Nechtan Finance Limited.