Brightpearl acquires Inventory Planner

Brightpearl has acquired Inventory Planner, a demand planning tool that enables e-commerce retailers to forecast inventory and optimise stock.

Inventory Planner will continue as a separate division of Brightpearl, with planned investment from Brightpearl to evolve and enhance the brand and expand its business.

The combination of Inventory Planner and Brightpearl will allow merchants to connect historical sales data to Brightpearl’s built-for-retail operating system.

Inventory Planner has 2,060 customers, primarily in English-speaking countries, 60% of which are between $1m and $100m GMV. Many subscribe via direct download from an app store such as Shopify. Merchants can utilize the tool to quickly visualise trends, and configure advanced reporting and notifications to help run their business by exception.

Derek O’Carroll, CEO of Brightpearl, said: “We’re thrilled to announce the acquisition of Inventory Planner. The last two years have shown the importance of demand forecasting expertise for today’s fast-growing merchants, so we’re delighted to be able to offer this best-in-class solution as an extension of the Brightpearl network. We’re also excited about the addition of its experienced and talented team to the wider Brightpearl family.

“Our deal with Inventory Planner signals the first step in our mission to give modern merchants the freedom to easily deploy commerce experiences on their own terms, with access to the very best retail technology products – empowering them to break away from jack-of-all-trades legacy systems.”

“This evolution of our relationship with Brightpearl will allow Inventory Planner to better serve its current and future clients as we tap into the full potential of our integrated solution and offer a cutting edge demand forecasting technology to the fast-growing merchants,” said Inventory Planner co-founder, Oleg Smirnov.

“We are thrilled to be joining forces with BrightPearl, an ideal partner who shares our values and commitment to building secure and scalable retail operating systems.”

The deal is expected to open up a new chapter for retail software with Brightpearl’s plan to create a destination model that puts an end to the one-size-fits-all approach and gives merchants the freedom and choice to meet the challenges of rapid growth.

O’Carroll adds: “Merchants need alternatives to the current ERP-dominated retail tech landscape. They need real-time scalability and optionality, instead of being tied long-term to ‘all in one’ solutions which force-feed mediocre products that limit scale and innovation.”

“We’ll be offering exciting opportunities for merchants to leverage Brightpearl’s growing family of best-in-class products, like Inventory Planner. These specialist applications come pre-integrated, secure and scalable, so merchants can rely upon them to grow fearlessly. They’ll have the choice to use these products as standalone solutions or interconnected to Brightpearl’s core operating system. It’s a win for our commerce customers, and a win for their consumers.”

Maurice Helfgott, Brightpearl Chairman, said: “I started my career as a Merchant and know how critical accurate prediction is to getting the right product available in the right place at the right time. Inventory Planner’s customers are delighted with the proven simplicity and accuracy of its easy-to-deploy forecasting solution  solution and we’re confident that Brightpearl’s world class team will help ensure success for the product with larger customers too.”

With its global headquarters in Bristol, UK and US headquarters in Austin, Texas, Brightpearl helps 1,000 commerce businesses to streamline and automate their retail operations across order management, CRM, fulfilment, accounting inventory, and warehouse management.

The company, which has partnerships with organisations like Shopify, eBay and Amazon, has seen 50% growth YOY, as more retail brands seek top technology solutions to support digital transformation, and now manages over $5bn of business a year.

This announcement comes after Brightpearl raised $33M in a recent series C round. Sage led the round, investing approximately £17 million ($23m) out of a total of £25 million ($33m) raised, with existing shareholders including Cipio Partners, Notion Capital and Verdane investing a further £8 million ($10m).