Dayton, Ohio-based Marxent, an industry leader in 3D product visualization, closed a $15M Series C funding in January, 2021. The newly acquired capital will fund strategic value creation opportunities, such as international expansion, as well as new product development and research. This funding round brings the company’s cumulative amount raised to nearly $29M.
“With the base business operating as a going concern, this $15 million series C puts us in a position to attack targeted growth initiatives,” Marxent CEO and cofounder Beck Besecker told VentureBeat. “One of the most important in our minds is to connect the design, visualization, and purchase experience to the rest of the customer journey. For instance, Pinterest is now the place customers start a project by getting inspired. A great solution should allow shoppers to design with what inspired them. Our proprietary ‘design from photo’ [feature] makes that consumer journey possible.”
Marxent’s mission is to build a “3D ecosystem” for enterprise furniture, building products, and home improvement retailers and manufacturers, which the company claims will make selling high-value, configurable products online a breeze. The company has already secured notable large clients such as Lowe’s Home Improvement, Ashley HomeStore, Macy’s and La-Z-Boy, to name a few.
The company’s 3D applications are only continuing to impress these innovative omnichannel home improvement and home furnishing retailers and manufacturers who see Marxent’s products as a way to help reduce returns by 80%, sell bigger baskets (50% increase in average transaction size), and elevate the overall customer experience—both in-store and virtually—with a 30% faster average sale cycle. This is because with Marxent’s 3D Cloud retail solutions, buyers can feasibly configure, price, and quote a wide range of projects with multiple components and customizations virtually. According to VentureBeat, Marxent’s 3D Cloud can fully visualize bedrooms, office spaces, kitchens, bathrooms, and outdoor settings.
“Marxent’s 3D commerce platform will transform both the customer experience and underlying ecosystem like Netflix and Tesla did for their categories. With a blue-chip client base, proven ROI, millions of buyable SKUs, and hundreds of millions in 3D-enabled sales, Marxent’s 3D Cloud is the virtual selling platform of choice for high-value, configurable products for the home,” said Arnie Bellini of Bellini Capital, the lead investor in the round. “3D-enabled selling was already an emerging growth category. COVID has further accelerated the demand for virtual selling of home goods and Marxent is the recognized technology leader in the space enabling the experience,” Bellini continued.
The company has also been extremely vocal regarding its intentional growth initiatives for the near future. This includes international expansion efforts to support the growing 3D needs of their European and U.K. markets. Additionally, the company plans to focus on the development of new products that include highly requested, value-add features. Marxent also plans to expand to new adjacent home categories and build strategic partnerships through integrations with Pinterest and other inspiration platforms.
“From London and Paris, to Dayton and St. Petersburg, Florida, I just can’t say enough good things about the Marxent team,” Besecker said. “It has taken an incredible group of folks to build Marxent into a market leader in this exciting space and the journey has just begun. They bring an inspiring combination of grit, determination, and creativity to the table and are ready for what’s next. We have grand ambitions and are excited to grow the team and company materially in 2021 and beyond.”
Marxent was founded in 2012 by brothers Beck and Barry Besecker, during the early days of mobile commerce. Beck holds a BS in finance from Urbana University and a master’s from Purdue University; he is also the company’s CEO. Prior to Marxent’s founding, Beck founded Copient Technologies (later acquired by NCR) and was Catalina Marketing’s Chief Development Officer.
Barry graduated from Wright State University with a BS in mathematics and computer science. Before the founding of Marxent, Barry spent eight years with Crown Partners, holding a VP position for web and marketing practice. Barry currently serves as the CTO for Marxent.
