SearchSpring acquired by venture equity firm Scaleworks

Scaleworks, a San Antonio-based venture finance and equity firm, has acquired internal site search provider SearchSpring. The acquisition will provide SearchSpring with resources and investment to scale its internal search offerings while growing its merchandising capabilities.

What is SearchSpring? Founded in Denver, CO in 2007, SearchSpring specializes in supplying search, navigation and merchandising technology to direct-to-consumer companies and sites. Their clients include brands like Bethesda Game Studios, Volcom, Bikini.com and Moen. SearchSpring’s products integrate with major e-commerce platforms such as Shopify Plus, Magento, Miva and BigCommerce.

More on the acquisition. Operated independently as a bootstrapped company until just recently, SearchSpring is Scaleworks’ first venture into e-commerce. As part of the acquisition, Peter Messana, former COO of GroupBy, will replace SearchSpring founder Gareth Dismore as CEO.

A press release by SearchSpring states that the acquisition will help take the company’s Relevancy Platform, which enables merchants to control and automate how products display across their entire site, to more brands and retailers.

Why we should care. SearchSpring has been able to capitalize on D2C growth by providing internal search and merchandising technology to e-commerce brands, and venture firms like Scaleworks are also recognizing the potential.

This underscores just how important having a capable internal search engine and merchandising solution is. And, with e-commerce sales projected to grow 15.1% (to $605.3 billion) in the U.S. alone this year, e-commerce companies would be wise to ensure that the systems they have in place facilitate their staff and help customers find what they’re looking for.