Our portfolio startup and free website builder platform, Strikingly that allows creating responsive (mobile-friendly) websites from desktop and mobile devices without any coding or designing skills has raised $10M in Series A+ (which is technically a Series B) right after one year of its Series A.
This funding round was led by Cathay Innovation, a sub-organization of a French investment firm, Cathay Capital and CAS Holding Group. After this Series A+, the total funding amount of Strikingly has summed up to $17.5M according to Crunchbase.
Co-founder and CEO David Chen tells TechCrunch that the funding is “technically a Series B level round for us,” but the team wanted to call it a Series A+ because the capital will be used to continue the momentum of products launched around the time of its Series A, including a mobile website editor and a reseller program, as well as its growth in China. (Series A+ rounds are also more common in China, where Strikingly has an office in Shanghai and is one of the most popular website building services).
“The A+ is a natural continuation of what we’ve been doing since our Series A,” Chen says.
Strikingly also has another edge over competitors in China, where it’s already dealt with the hurdles faced by content management software providers. “Content is very strictly regulated and just being able to enter China was a big step forward from any of our counterparts in the U.S.,” says Chen. Over the past two years, he says Strikingly has become the leading website-building SaaS solution in China, thanks to partnerships with Alibaba Cloud, Tencent Cloud and ZBJ, China’s largest market for freelancers. For example, Tencent Cloud users were offered free week-long trails of Strikingly and it is integrated into ZBJ’s platform.
“China is a huge market obviously and we have already done the hard work of being able to enter China,” says Chen. “We see a lot of opportunities here even beyond website building, but that being our core product gives us a very good entry point to any enterprise service marketplace in China.”
Please read full story at TechCrunch.