Marketplaces are the order of the day when it comes to selling online, providing a one-stop shop for shoppers, and for retailers looking to target as many would-be buyers as possible, while also creating more economies of scale in areas fulfillment and delivery. Amazon has become the name synonymous with marketplace selling, but it's far from the only player in town. Today, a startup called ChannelEngine, which helps retailers connect with and sell through more than 200 marketplaces, is announcing a growth round of funding to continue building out its business amid strong demand. The startup -- based out of Leiden, Netherlands -- has raised $50 million, funding that it will be using both to continue expanding the number of marketplaces it works with, the number of retailers that it connects to them, and to work on building out what the next generation of e-commerce will look like for all of them.

Atomico is leading the round, with new investor General Catalyst, plus previous backers Inkef and Airbridge Equity Partners, also participating; along with Stephan Schambach, the founder of Demandware, Intershop and NewStore, coming on as an angel investor.

Valuation is not being disclosed but as a marker of how the company has been growing at a profit up to now, it was founded in 2013 raised only around $7 million before this round, most recently doubling revenues in the last year on a base of over 450 retailer customers, with the list including the likes of Bugaboo, Staples, JBL, Polaroid, Hunkemöller, Brabantia, Reckitt Benckiser, Bosch, JDE, Electrolux, Philips Domestic Appliances, Signify, Diadora, Glanbia, Oneill, and Safavieh. (It's not disclosing revenues, or valuation, with this round.)

The rise of ChannelEngine comes not just at a time when e-commerce has really come into its own -- the pandemic drove many companies and people to selling and buying online -- but specifically the rise of the marketplace as a key component of that online buying experience. Amazon has made a killing in the world of e-commerce by way of its Marketplace: aggregating millions of retailers in one place creates a one-stop shop for those looking for goods, and retailers can lean on Amazon's economies of scale not only to sell to those shoppers, but to distribute and deliver those products, too.

But Amazon is just the tip of the marketplace iceberg. eBay, Walmart, Zalando, Mercado Libre, AliExpress, Back Market, Shopee, Lazada, Mirakl, Bol.com, Allegro, CDON, Cdiscount, Catch are examples of the many other generalist and more localized storefronts out there for retailers to leverage when targeting consumers. Even Macy's has moved into the marketplace model.