Retail e-commerce businesses have seen a significant increase in investment in 2021, with $12.400 billion raised in the first half of the year, a 51% increase over all of 2020.
Fundraising for payments startups has surpassed funding for merchant tools and services startups.
Socially, the pandemic, the drive for digitization and, as a consequence, globalization has marked a point of acceleration of the use of ecommerce by customers. This has caused a notable improvement of existing digital services or the creation of new ones.
From a technology standpoint, new equity investments in buy now, pay later (BNPL) payment companies and payment gateway services or startups are the main drivers behind this increase, as consumers demand more flexible payment methods. This has been a major change from last year, when companies that offer merchant services like Shopify were the industry leaders.
