Sidecar raises $8 million Series B

Sidecar, the Center City ecommerce marketing company, raised an $8 million Series B from Boston-based venture capital firm Ascent Venture Partners and a whole slate of local investors.
It’s Ascent’s first investment in a Philly company, according to CEO Andre Golsorkhi’s blog post announcing the round.
For the people who say there’s no local venture dollars, check out this list of local investors who participated in the round, as per Golsorkhi’s blog post (we saw many of these investors at venture capital conference IMPACT).

Osage Venture Partners; Michael Rubin, former CEO of GSI Commerce; Sashi Reddi, former CEO and founder of AppLabs; Jonathan Brassington, CEO of LiquidHub; Paul Melchiorre, President of iPipeline; Michael Phelan, former CEO of SevOne; Scott Tarte, CEO of Sparks; Richard Vague, former CEO of Energy Plus and First USA; Tony Ibarguen, CEO of Quench; NextStage Capital; Robin Hood Ventures; Ben Franklin Technology Partners; Innovation Capital Advisors; and ARC Angel Fund.

Sidecar has largely been backed by local investors. It raised $4.1 million in 2014 from local investors. The company has raised $15 million to date, said spokeswoman Marifran Ritchie, who used to run communications at fellow local ecommerce marketing company Monetate.
The company plans to use the money to double its staff of nearly 100 and develop products for Google Shopping. That’s a lot of growth: Sidecar already doubled its staff in 2015, Golsorkhi wrote in his blog post.
Sidecar won Tech Startup of the Year at PACT’s Enterprise Awards earlier this year.