Funding to digital commerce tech companies — solutions that enable e-commerce — has slowed, mirroring the funding decline in retail tech as well as the broader venture market.
However, there’s one reason to be optimistic: early-stage activity.
Among e-commerce enablement tech, early-stage funding has grown as a share of total funding, increasing from 17% in 2022 to 22% in 2023. Contrary to overall trends in venture, the average size of early-stage deals also increased slightly in 2023, to $6.7M, from $6.4M in 2022.
Tracking early-stage innovation provides insight into the evolution of the online selling experience. To see where e-commerce tech is heading in 2024, we looked at the tech markets with the most early-stage funding activity in 2023. These include:
- 3D product visualization
- White-label clothing resale platforms
- End-to-end e-commerce solutions
- AI-optimized e-commerce UX
- Livestream e-commerce
We dig into the trends shaping each market below.
