Shopify, Inc., the e-commerce platform headquartered in Ottawa, has acquired Toronto-based company Jet Cooper, a user experience and design agency, for an undisclosed amount.
Jet Cooper, which reached its fourth birthday in May has worked on projects for brands like Cineplex Inc., Sobeys Inc., Telus Corp., and TEDxToronto. Its team of about 25 developers and designers will be joining Shopify’s staff and expanding its operations in Toronto. Shopify predicts it’ll have hit the 300-employee mark by the end of this year.
The combination should be a strong one, says Harley Finkelstein, chief platform officer at Shopify.
“One of our core value propositions was to make sure that people building stores on Shopify had the most beautiful storefronts, regardless of what their skills were in design,” he says.
“We kept bumping into Jet Cooper just over and over again, just these incredible designers that happen to be in Toronto … and eventually we just thought, okay, we can achieve our goals faster and more effectively with having this incredible group of 25 join us.”
Finkelstein says he also expects the acquisition to help boost Shopify’s connections in Toronto.
“We’re really an Ottawa company that’s moved to Toronto … [so Jet Cooper] can also help introduce us to some new talent as well, just because of their presence on the ground there,” he says.
Shopify’s staff of 12 to 15 people in Toronto will be moving into Jet Cooper’s office, forming an outpost of roughly 50 people by year’s end, Finkelstein adds. That office will be focusing on marketing, growth, and design.
Based out of Ottawa, Ontario, Shopify has made a name for itself in e-commerce, providing the platform powering online stores for companies like Forbes, Inc., Tesla Motors, Inc., Amnesty International, and Gatorade. It currently supports about 60,000 online stores.
In February 2012, the e-commerce company also acquired Select Start Studios, Inc., a mobile software developer, to build out its mobile apps and support mobile transactions.