12th of FEBRUARY 2025: MarketLeap, the first fully integrated AI-driven platform to simplify and scale D2C ecommerce, today announced an $8 million Series A funding round led by Smedvig Ventures, with participation from Expon Capital, Motier Ventures and prominent business angels including former executives from Amazon, SoftBank, and Unilever. This capital injection will allow the company to accelerate platform development and invest in top talent to support its rapid growth trajectory.
Global ecommerce sales are projected to reach $8 trillion by 2027, yet private brand owners typically only capture 0.2% of their potential reach during their lifetime due to a lack of time, expertise and capital. MarketLeap offers customers - including Edible Health and Manissa - a platform solution that uses AI-powered automation to navigate the complexities of marketplace operations and backend management. Its leading tech solution and strategic partnerships with marketplaces, third-party logistics (3PL) providers, compliance experts and finance partners enable sellers to scale operations and reach global customers with ease.
The company was founded in 2022 by co-founders, Mamoun Benkirane and Mekki Mouaddeb, who both previously worked for ecommerce giants, Amazon and Jumia. The inspiration for MarketLeap came when Mamoun led a webinar for Amazon sellers about expanding into new markets and found himself inundated with emails complaining about the complexity of the process and tools provided. Concurrently, Mekki found that while many sellers demonstrate exceptional strengths in sourcing profitable products, they face significant challenges in scaling their operations internationally.
Upon realising more than 90% of sellers with revenues over half a million make more than 80% of their revenue in just one market, the pair launched the first ecommerce operating system that uses AI and automation to help brands break through barriers to international expansion by seamlessly connecting them with global marketplace customers.
“MarketLeap goes beyond being a KPI dashboard or global distributor. It is a partner that supports all areas of international marketplace ecommerce operations, powered by data-driven insights. The company invests in its customers’ growth and the technology, combined with this unique ‘skin in the game’ approach, makes MarketLeap the perfect partner for confidently and smoothly selling worldwide”, says Jessika Nilsson, Chief Operations Officer of Edible Health.
Since its $2.6 million cumulative Seed Round, MarketLeap has enhanced its platform functionality in key areas such as inventory management and pricing by leveraging automation and LLMs. Third-party integration has also been revamped, and the platform now ingests and processes more data in a day than it did in its first year. By the end of 2024, the company had seen a 340% year-on-year growth in customer numbers and expanded to a team of 13 with eight new members set to join in early 2025, including two ex-Amazon leaders stepping into MarketLeap’s first Vice President roles.
MarketLeap’s latest funding will facilitate more AI-driven automation across different functions within the platform and enhance real-time analytics capabilities. The team is building cutting-edge integration tools to fuel the expansion of its marketplace ecosystem. MarketLeap will double down on its US presence this year, helping American brands overcome the fragmentation and intricacies of selling to European customers. This development will be underpinned by a drive for top talent, including in its new Madrid and New York City offices.
Mamoun Benkirane, CEO and Co-founder of MarketLeap, said: “While Amazon prides itself on being a customer-obsessed business, the reality for sellers is far more challenging. Data and reports are fragmented and incomplete, making actionable insights difficult to obtain. Tools are either limited or overly complex, and accounts are often suspended at the slightest sign of compliance issues. At MarketLeap, we pride ourselves on being seller obsessed. Our platform simplifies marketplace operations by leveraging automation and AI, allowing brands to focus on their D2C strategy and products. By handling the operational complexities, we empower brands to overcome the barriers of global ecommerce and unlock their full potential.”
“The post-COVID era of e-commerce has seen the emergence of many models to help brands grow, but most either sideline the brand owner as the key product driver or offer SaaS tools that fail to address the core issue: time spent navigating marketplace complexities. Our model solves this by saving time while keeping the brand owner as the product manager.” - Mekki Mouaddeb, COO and Co-founder of MarketLeap
Joe Knowles, Partner at Smedvig Ventures, said: “Marketplaces are booming globally as they become an important channel for brands’ ecommerce sales. But as competition for brands heightens, so too does the complexity and the sophistication required to make this investment a success. MarketLeap’s tech-enabled service delivery, underpinned by powerful automation, allows it to do so much more than an agency team. With Mamoun and Mekki’s particularly unique founder market fit, thanks to their experience at Amazon and Jumia, there’s not only great evidence that the model works today, but that there’s a great opportunity for MarketLeap in the future.”
