Mercent Corp., which provides software to retailers to sell their products on shopping-related Web sites, said it has raised Series A financing.

Eric Best, founder and chief executive of the company, declined to disclose the amount raised for competitive reasons, but he told VentureWire than it is "less than $10 million."

The round, which was led by Madrona Venture Group LLC, is still open, and Best anticipates that it will close within the next 45 days, with either another venture capital firm or an institutional investor participating.

Proceeds from the round will be used to accelerate the expansion of Mercent's flagship product, Mercent Commerce System, as well as to build its workforce. Mercent currently has 15 employees and expects to double the number within the next 12 months, hiring in sales, marketing, engineering and at the executive level.

"We want to shorten the time horizon for rolling out additional features and functionalities," Best said. He anticipates that the new financing will last about 12 months and that Mercent, which is cash flow positive, will start raising its Series B round of financing in the fourth quarter.

Mercent Commerce System enables retailers to effectively sell products through online consumer marketplaces and reach new customers using a low-cost point of integration. Mercent's software helps retailers maintain inventory, sell products through online channels, as well as manage financial settlement such as shipping costs and taxes.

The company has about 30 national retailers as customers, including Guess Inc.; Crabtree & Evelyn, a subsidiary of Kuala Lumpur Kepong Berhad; Lucky Brand Jeans, part of Liz Claiborne Inc.; and the Wet Seal Inc. They either license Mercent's software upfront or pay a monthly subscription fee.

Mercent also works with about 10 partners, all online retail channels, including Amazon.com Inc., Yahoo! Inc., BizRate.com Inc., PriceGrabber.com LLC, America Online Inc.'s AOL inStore, NexTag Inc., Microsoft Corp.'s MSN Shopping, Shopping.com Ltd., mySimon, and Google Inc.'s Froogle.

He noted that competitors include Truition and ChannelAdvisor Corp.

Seattle-based Mercent was founded in 2002 and was bootstrapped in its first two years. Best previously founded a software consultancy, MindCorps, which was purchased by Amazon in 1999. He also worked at Amazon for about two years as business development manager of the Amazon Commerce Network, where he focused on the relationship between Toys "R" Us and Amazon.

Best said that he already knew then that "there was going to be a need for vendor services to support the integration of Amazon.com relationships."

As a result of the round, Tom Alberg, managing director of Madrona Venture Group, will join Best on the board. Alberg was also an early investor in Amazon. Best noted that he will continue building the board over the next 90 days.

http://www.mercent.com