Brightpearl, the world’s largest purpose-built retail ERP platform, today announces a $15 million growth round and the appointment of a new Chairman to help drive further expansion.

More than 1,000 brands rely on Brightpearl to transact more than $1.8bn of trade across 26 countries. The company has seen a 77% increase in year-on-year new business growth and delivered 34% revenue growth in the last 12 months alone. Brightpearl was recently voted the top SaaS company to work for in Britain, beating companies such as Microsoft, Adobe and LinkedIn.The round was led by led by Cipio Partners, who will join existing investors MMC Ventures and Notion Capital.

Derek O’Carroll, CEO of Brightpearl says: “We’ve experienced tremendous growth over the last year because of our ability to service the need from fast-growing brands for a solution that automates their operational processes and supports real-time decision making, which is absolutely vital in today’s culture of immediacy for retailers and wholesalers. “It’s a real credit to the Brightpearl team and the support of our customers that we have secured investment from a leading European technology investment firm. We plan to invest these funds into expanding our service and introducing machine learning capabilities to give our customers even more value when making business decisions’’

Brightpearl has also appointed Maurice Helfgott as Chairman, the former Marks & Spencer main board director, who has built a reputation for transforming the fortunes of fashion businesses, especially online. He is the founder of Amery Capital, an investment and advisory firm with a principal focus on retail and digital consumer businesses.

Maurice Helfgott said “Retail and wholesale are in a stage of transformation and reinvention and there is a huge opportunity in this sector. I know from experience that automating the back office to work efficiently is now a major priority for merchants. Brightpearl has purpose built an ERP solution that’s designed specifically for retailers and wholesalers to take back control of their business and generate significant operational gains.

Read more from Maurice on his appointment via UKTN.