Two trendy ecommerce technology terms tied to customized and flexible B2B and B2C ecommerce sites are “headless commerce” and “composable commerce.” Software provider Elastic Path, flush with new capital, is out to build on its connection to both.

Jamus Driscoll, CEO, Elastic Path

“I think we’re at one of the most exciting moments in the digital commerce industry that we’ve seen … and really feel like we’re at the foothills of the next major change” as companies build out highly customized websites as part of an extended digital multichannel infrastructure, Elastic Path CEO Jamus Driscoll said in interview today after receiving $30 million in new funding.

Elastic Path is known for its headless commerce software architecture, which separates the ecommerce engine from customer-facing interfaces and from back-end business operations software. That technology design enables online companies like manufacturers Konica Minolta, Illumina and Keysight Technologies to use extensive sets of built-in application programming interfaces, or APIs. That allows them to integrate disparate software applications to customize customer-facing content and service features without having to modify the ecommerce engine software.

A composable best-of-breed system

Elastic Path also is a proponent of composable commerce. Composable commerce is a new cloud-based version of the traditional “best-of-breed” system of deploying a mix of applications from multiple vendors rather than relying on a monolithic, single-vendor platform. Composable commerce uses cloud-hosted software and APIs to bring best-of-breed to a new level of flexibility and scalability in building ecommerce ecosystems to suit the complex and changing needs of B2B ecommerce.

While headless commerce and composable commerce offer significant advantages to deploy customized B2B ecommerce sites that support multiple channels, they can also present challenges for companies as they deploy and manage a large set of APIs and the API-supported microservices behind many online features.

Elastic Path is building out its technology and services to help with those chores. Backed by its venture funding — which now totals $150 million, including funds received prior to 2022 — Elastic Path is building out its services to help companies integrate multiple applications and compose a customized commerce platform. In the past year, the company says it has recorded a more than 200% year-over-year increase in customer subscription bookings.

Getting to the right level of control

Driscoll — an ecommerce technology veteran who is a former senior executive of the Demandware ecommerce platform acquired by Salesforce Inc. for its CommerceCloud software — noted that, as companies trade older monolithic licensed software platforms for the highly customizable cloud-based platforms, they’re looking for easier ways to reach that customization.

“The trick for the market is going to be: How do I get to that level of control without having to contend with all the software complexity that led me off the on-premise software?” he said.

Among its new commerce technology and services launched this year is an Integrations Hub, which it describes as a central repository of pre-built “low code” integrations of software applications that Elastic Path uses to help clients deploy integrated software.

Joe Cicman, senior analyst for digital transformation at Forrester Research Inc., says the integration hub is a vital offering designed to smooth out new headless and composable technology deployments.

“Elastic Path’s integration hub is an important development for the market,” he says, adding, “There’s been a race to build-out these types of snap-in adapters to make best-of-breed less complex. Software vendors and software integrators are throwing their hats in the ring on this.”

Elastic Path also introduced this year:

● Product Experience Manager, or PXM, for developing and managing product catalogs across multiple channels.

● EP Payments, a system of pre-integrated payment applications.

Elastic Path received $30 million in a recent funding round led by Sageview Capital. Early this year, Sageview joined BlackRock Investment Corp. and other investors in a $60 million funding round.

“Sageview Capital partners with industry-disrupting companies that are redefining legacy initiatives,” said Jeff Klemens, partner at Sageview Capital. “Our ongoing confidence in the team at Elastic Path is predicated on their commitment to leading and championing a new era in composable commerce.”

In addition to developing new technology products, Elastic Path will use its funding to reach out to more companies of various sizes to make it simpler for them to deploy headless and composable commerce platforms, Driscoll said.

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