3Tera Cloud Journal

SAN FRANCISCO, CA -- (Marketwire) -- 02/16/12 -- Moonfruit, the leading high design DIY website and shop builder, today announced the appointment of Robbie Vann-Adibé as general manager of its newly launched US headquarters. Vann-Adibé brings broad experience as a senior executive with high growth Internet companies. He was most recently vice president of sales and business development of cloud computing company 3Tera before its acquisition by CA Technologies in 2009 and previously served as CEO at Method, a world-renowned branding, Web development and experience design firm, as well as co-founder of Viant, one of the original pure play internet consulting firms.

His leadership in establishing a larger U.S. team will help Moonfruit meet accelerating demand in the American market.

"With more than 20,000 shops and 1.5 million small business websites built in the US, we needed to get an on-the-ground team to serve growing customer demand throughout North America," said Wendy Tan-White, co-founder and CEO of Moonfruit. "The ability to scale is at the core of our services and design, and Robbie Vann-Adibé's rich experience operating branding, user interface design and e-commerce businesses in both the UK and the US, paired with his mature understanding of the economic nuances of each market, will help us grow and better serve our global customer base."

"Moonfruit lets businesses, small sellers and budding entrepreneurs publish beautiful sites instantly and sell everywhere -- without having to learn to develop for Web, mobile or social platforms, turning even the smallest business into a multichannel retailer instantly," said Vann-Adibé. "As an advocate for service delivery, technology, and innovation, I'm honored to take a leading role in growing the Moonfruit brand and providing direct local support to customers here in the US."

Moonfruit's DIY website builder aims to democratize the web for small businesses and individuals by providing easy-to-use web design and shop-building tools that let the owner maintain beautiful design and clear branding without having to do any heavy lifting. In addition, Moonfruit lets site owners instantly add e-commerce shops across different channels -- including social and mobile -- along with SEO-friendly market place distribution. Its unique offering has generated rapid adoption in both the US and UK.

Recent Moonfruit milestones include:

• Reached 4,500,000 sites, making it the number 1 website builder in the UK, with 35 percent of customers in the US
• Achieved 12 record revenue months in a row
• Announced new partnerships with PayPal and Barclays
• Launched ShopBuilder, the "out-of-the-box" e-commerce solution that lets individuals and small businesses sell instantly on the Web, via mobile phones or on Facebook, on October 19, 2011
  • Within the first 3 months, Moonfruit has added more than 120,000 vibrant Web, Facebook and mobile shops, supporting transactions in 15 currencies
• Selected by the UK Dept. of Business, Innovation, and Skills for the UK Prime Minister's "Business in You" initiative to support small firms and entrepreneurs on January 24, 2012
• HTML5 publishing capabilities on mobile and Facebook for shop owners; all sites will be HTML5 by October, 2012
• $2.3 million investment from Stephens (US) and 500 Startups, Dave McClure

About Moonfruit

Moonfruit is a high design DIY website and shop builder with the aim to democratize the web for small businesses and individuals by providing easy-to-use web design and shop-building tools. Moonfruit enables personalized web design, instant e-commerce across different channels including social and mobile, as well as market place distribution, for anyone. Moonfruit lets you customize the style and layout of your site so that it reflects your brand without having to understanding any coding. Web sites are SEO-friendly and immediately optimized for web and mobile. The Moonfruit ShopBuilder gives you the power to set up your online shop and trade immediately and everywhere, through the global channels of the web, mobile and social media. Over 4.5 million sites and 120,000 shops have been built using Moonfruit. It is the no. 1 hosted site builder in the UK and is expanding rapidly across the world, with over 1.5 million sites built in the US.

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