Capital One buys ecommerce platform AmeriCommerce to woo small businesses

Today Capital One announced it has acquired AmeriCommerce, a Texas-based “e-commerce solutions provider” that competes with online shopping cart services such as Shopify.

A Capital One spokesperson told VentureBeat by phone that the company is “trying to more focus on digital tools for small businesses. We’re very excited about the future of that,” the spokesperson said. Capital One declined to discuss the nature of the deal and would not share whether it involved an exchange of cash, equity, or both.

Regarding how nine-year-old AmeriCommerce and its team will be integrated with Capital One, a Capital One spokesperson offered us the following statement:

We plan to leverage AmeriCommerce’s technology and talent to help us expand our small business customer base by offering value-added product, tools, resources and expertise. Capital One is the first big bank to add e-commerce to our offerings and we’re excited about delivering these types of tools and products to our customers.

A press release from AmeriCommerce mirrors Capital One’s statements, but it leaves many questions unanswered, including if AmeriCommerce’s services will remain independent after the acquisition closes. Later, Capital One shared that “for now, Americommerce will continue to operate independently.”

Today’s deal closely follows Capital One’s acquisition of San Francisco design firm Adaptive Path.