Commerce Layer
Prato, IT · Founded 2017 · 7 known investors
Commerce Layer provides API infrastructure for enterprise ecommerce, offering 400+ API endpoints, real-time webhooks, and a composable, multi-market architecture. It positions its platform to enable transactions carried out by AI agents on behalf of shoppers.
Also known as Commerce Layer, Inc. · CommerceLayer · Commerce Layer S.r.l.
Company profile
researched Aug 2026Founding story
Commerce architects Filippo Conforti and Massimo Scardellato had spent years implementing commerce for brands and saw monolithic suites constrain designers, developers and international business rules. They founded Commerce Layer in 2017, removed the CMS from an early version to focus only on secure transactional logic, and built every feature API-first so customers could pair it with any content and front-end stack.
Business model
Cloud, API-first commerce engine sold to engineering-led brands, retailers, marketplaces and solution partners. Customers assemble a composable stack around Commerce Layer's transactional primitives rather than buying a monolithic storefront/CMS. The platform powers B2C, B2B, omnichannel, multi-brand, subscription, marketplace, POS and agentic-commerce use cases.
Usage- and capacity-based recurring SaaS subscriptions centered on placed-order volume and enterprise limits, with a perpetual free Developer tier and custom Enterprise contracts. Paid terms can add Distributed OMS, Promotion Engine and Metrics Dashboard, dedicated support, roles/identity, SLAs and higher limits. Payment gateway, tax, carrier, agency and other third-party charges are separate.
Traction
From six customers in May 2020, Commerce Layer reached about 26 customers and 6x year-over-year revenue growth by May 2021. Its current public customer page lists more than 40 brands and implementations across Europe, the U.S., Latin America and Asia-Pacific, including Giorgio Armani, Mammut, iFIT, SumUp, Brioni, Rapha, LEGO and Coca-Cola Embonor. SumUp uses it across 35 markets, Chilly's across 30+ countries and WinePlatform for 250+ wineries.
Market position
An independent Series B composable-commerce specialist smaller than commercetools, Shopify or Salesforce but differentiated by a focused transaction/OMS layer, developer ergonomics and open components. It participates in the MACH ecosystem and is repositioning its long-standing API architecture as infrastructure for agentic commerce.
Separates transactional commerce from content/PIM and presentation; one clean API model spans human, in-store and agent transactions; native multi-market pricing, inventory and rules; deployable without replacing a preferred CMS/front end; broad payment/tax/fulfillment interoperability; 400+ endpoints, 100+ webhook triggers, sub-90ms average response and 99.99% SLA claims; free developer access but enterprise depth.
Latest developments
The company shifted its 2026 positioning from headless/composable toward agentic commerce while preserving human and POS use cases. It released a Core MCP server on June 17 with schema-aware access to 100% of platform resources and announced a ground-up Payments API on July 7 supporting independent payment lifecycles, multiple authorizations/captures/refunds and an autumn 2026 release. Current status showed 99.99% API uptime over 90 days, with a brief EU database-update incident on August 3.
Risks & controversies
Long enterprise procurement and composable-implementation cycles; customer need for strong engineering/agency resources; smaller vendor scale and 27-person team relative to enterprise competitors; order-volume revenue sensitivity; dependence on cloud, payment, tax, shipping and identity providers; integration and data-model complexity; PCI/privacy/security and uptime exposure at a mission-critical transaction layer; emerging agent write-action/payment fraud and authorization risk; open-source competitors and consolidation; strategic positioning may outpace disclosed agent-generated volume. No material company-specific litigation, enforcement or disclosed breach was located.
▸Full profile — technology, go-to-market, geography, history, ownership
Technology
Multi-tenant SaaS built around a JSON:API REST Core API, OAuth 2.0, real-time webhooks and event streams, global edge delivery, multi-market resource scoping, stateless checkout, order/inventory orchestration, third-party payment/tax/shipping integrations and open-source front-end components. Its 2026 MCP server adds schema discovery, validation and docs-aware agent access using the same permissions model.
Go-to-market
Developer-led adoption through a no-expiry free tier, exhaustive docs, API references, SDKs, CLI, open-source micro frontends, community and proof-of-concepts; enterprise direct sales and dedicated support; agency, MACH and best-of-breed technology partnerships; customer case studies and land-and-expand from checkout or a market into OMS, POS and multi-country deployments.
Mid-market and enterprise brands, retailers, digital-native businesses, multi-country merchants, B2B sellers, marketplaces, subscription businesses and agencies/system integrators that need custom front ends with global transactional infrastructure.
Luxury/fashion; consumer goods; fitness; financial services; games/digital goods; healthcare; education; wine/hospitality; B2B manufacturing; automotive; food/beverage; agencies and multi-tenant commerce platforms.
Geography
Founded and product-engineered in Prato near Florence, with a U.S. Delaware parent and Woodside, California presence. Remote-distributed employees and clients span Europe, North America, Latin America and APAC; multi-market architecture supports any currency, localized pricing, shipping, taxes and inventory models.
History
Founded in Prato in 2017 and publicly described the platform in 2018; connected with Mango Capital in 2019; reorganized under a U.S. parent while raising a $6m Benchmark-led Series A in May 2020; raised a $16m Coatue-led Series B in May 2021; added hosted checkout, OMS/returns/subscriptions, dashboard and micro-frontends; joined the MACH Alliance in January 2023; certified SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and PCI DSS Level 1 by 2024; expanded promotions/POS in 2024-25; launched Core MCP in June 2026 and announced a redesigned Payments API for autumn 2026.
Ownership
Privately held by founders/employees and investors including Coatue, Benchmark, Mango Capital, DAXN, PrimeSet, SV Angel and NVInvestments. Eric Vishria and Caryn Marooney joined the board for Benchmark and Coatue respectively. Cap-table percentages and valuation are private; no acquisition or later financing was found through August 17, 2026.
Compiled by commissioned research from 30 cited public sources — announcements, filings, and press listed under research sources below.
Founders & leadership
Commerce Layer was founded in 2017 by Massimo Scardellato and Filippo Conforti.
Board
Investors · 7
Also in the syndicate · 3
Key figures
latest reportedCompany-reported or press-reported figures, each dated to when it was claimed — not independently audited.
Customers & partners
Named customers · 18
Partnerships · 6
Relationships the company or its partners disclosed publicly — case studies, joint announcements, press.
Pricing
as listed Aug 2026Public list pricing as researched from the company's own pricing pages; negotiated and enterprise terms vary.
Reported raises · per SEC filings
Form D private placements$16M disclosed across 1 of 3 rounds · 2019–2021
▶$16MraisedJun 2021 · 5 investors · Other TechnologyRule 506(b)
- Massimo ScardellatoExecutive Officer, Director
- Eric VishriaDirector
- Filippo ConfortiExecutive Officer, Director
- Caryn MarooneyDirector
- Offering amount
- $16M
- Amount sold
- $16M
- First sale
- May 2021
- Incorporated
- Corporation, Delaware, 2020
- Federal exemptions
- 06b
Source: SEC EDGAR Form D. Amounts as filed; amended filings shown once at their latest values.
Timeline · 16
launches, deals, and filingsNone located in reviewed public sources.
Public-source review · No company-specific lawsuit, regulatory enforcement, disclosed material breach or insolvency proceeding found; private disputes cannot be excluded. source ↗
Routine update could not complete; monitoring alerted the team and manual restart completed the procedure within minutes.
Ground-up architecture adds independent lifecycles and multiple authorizations, captures and refunds for autumn release.
AI agents gained schema discovery, preflight validation, documentation and governed access to all Core API resources.
Visual and JSON rule tooling expanded complex, market-aware promotions.
Company documented SOC 2 Type II, ISO 27001 and PCI DSS Level 1 posture.
No public enforcement located. As a checkout/payment and order-data processor, Commerce Layer faces cardholder-data scope, data-subject, breach-notification, access-control and subprocessor duties.
PCI Security Standards Council; EU GDPR; U.S./international privacy and security requirements · Company reports PCI DSS Level 1, SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 certification, annual penetration tests and quarterly external scans. source ↗
New dashboard navigation, Provisioning/Authentication APIs, data-region selection and expanded roles improved enterprise administration.
Independent group validated the company's microservices, API-first, cloud-native and headless positioning.
Out-of-box hosted payments doubled as a reference implementation for custom checkout.
Coatue led with Benchmark and Mango; Caryn Marooney joined the board after 6x annual revenue growth.
Benchmark, Mango, DAXN, PrimeSet, SV Angel and NVInvestments funded expansion; Eric Vishria joined the board.
None; legal restructuring established a U.S. parent for the existing Italian business as part of Series A financing.
Delaware corporate law / cross-border corporate structuring · Commerce Layer, Inc. became the parent while Italian development/operations continued through the subsidiary. source ↗
Founder met Mango Capital in 2019; company total later implied about $1m pre-Series A capital.
Company explained removal of its early CMS and focus on scalable multi-market transactional APIs.
Filippo Conforti and Massimo Scardellato built an API-first transactional engine separated from content and presentation.
Dated company events from announcements, filings, and press; legal rows summarize public dockets and regulator releases.
Legal entities · 2
corporate structure▸Research sources · 30
primary sources listed
- Commerce Layer — Sell everywhereCommerce Layer · company website
- The future is agenticCommerce Layer founders · founder statement
- PricingCommerce Layer · company pricing
- Trusted by leading brands worldwideCommerce Layer · company customer index
- Universal CheckoutCommerce Layer · company product
- Infrastructure powering agentic commerceCommerce Layer · company product
- Commerce Layer documentationCommerce Layer · technical documentation
- Security you can trustCommerce Layer · company security
- Commerce Layer StatusCommerce Layer / Atlassian Statuspage · service status
- Commerce Layer MACH Alliance memberMACH Alliance · industry member profile
- Commerce Layer partnersCommerce Layer · company partner index
- Introducing our new Payments APICommerce Layer · company product post
30 public sources were cited for this profile; the first-party ones are listed here.
Frequently asked questions
- What does Commerce Layer do?
- Commerce Layer is an Italian-founded, API-first unified-commerce infrastructure company whose SaaS provides checkout, distributed order and inventory management, pricing/promotions, payments, POS, subscriptions and agent-ready transaction APIs for global brands across channels and markets.
- Who founded Commerce Layer?
- Commerce Layer was founded by Massimo Scardellato, Filippo Conforti in 2017.
- Who are Commerce Layer's investors?
- Commerce Layer's investors include Coatue Management, SV Angel, Benchmark, Mango Capital.
- How much funding has Commerce Layer raised?
- Commerce Layer has disclosed $16M raised across 1 of its 3 known rounds.
- Where is Commerce Layer headquartered?
- Commerce Layer is headquartered in Prato, IT.