Wix.com, the free website builder recently launched its own venture capital initiative, Wix Capital, to invest in technology innovators globally.
Wix Capital will invest in investors focused on the future of the web and that look to accelerate how businesses operate in today’s evolving digital landscape.
Its specific areas of focus include software and technology startups that sit at the intersection of online design and development, commerce and business management and AI and automation solutions. Wix Capital aims to participate in seed and early-stage investment rounds worldwide.
Wix has rapidly grown from a startup to a multi-billion dollar company with over 180 million users worldwide and more than 4,000 employees globally. Its talents and expertise from its history of success, as well as relationships it has built, can be passed onto founding teams to help them scale.
“Given Wix’s success, the Wix team understands building a world class team while keeping a strong start-up culture,” said Lior Shemesh, Wix Chief Financial Officer. “Launching Wix Capital will help us stay on top of emerging trends in our fields and be a targeted effort of allocating strategic support to companies that are looking at us as an example of a strong growth company,” said Shemesh, who will be leading the fund’s investment efforts.
To date, Wix Capital has deployed over $5.6 million into several companies including Spike, which created a leading communication and workflow tool and which announced in June an $8 million Series A investment round in which Wix participated.
Oriente, a digital fintech company in which Wix Capital invested, provides Wix additional knowledge on financial services in emerging Asian markets. To provide Wix with insights and capabilities in a fast-growing segment of ecommerce, Wix Capital invested in Modalyst, a leading dropshipping platform. Wix Capital also invested in RestAR, a 3D capturing and AI product visualization tool, to gain more knowledge of ways that merchants and advertisers can increase conversion online.