- HQ
- Austin, Texas, USA
- Company size
- 1,001-5,000
- Funding raised
- $224.2M
- Lead investors
- Goldman Sachs, General Catalyst, GGV Capital, SoftBank, Revolution Growth
- Team location
- Eastern Europe
- Cooperation time
- 4 years
- Product
- Flexible enterprise ecommerce platform for B2B and B2C growth
- Notable clients
- Cole Haan, Harvey Nichols, Dell, Mizuno, Uplift Desk
Fully backed R&D office with 30 developers for BigCommerce
BigCommerce, powered by Commerce (Nasdaq: CMRC), is an Austin-based open SaaS ecommerce platform built to help brands, retailers, and B2B sellers of all sizes grow without being locked into rigid systems. Founded in 2009, the platform now serves 130,000+ merchants across 150+ countries. Backed by Goldman Sachs, General Catalyst, GGV Capital, SoftBank, and Revolution Growth, BigCommerce has raised $224.2M and trades publicly on NASDAQ.
Issue
BigCommerce was making an aggressive push on product development – and it needed to scale its engineering team fast to match.
US developers were too expensive and too scarce to fill the gap. Eastern Europe had the answer: engineers with hands-on depth in PHP, Scala, Ruby, and JavaScript – exactly the stack BigCommerce ran on – at salaries up to 50% below US market rates. The destination was clear. The model wasn’t.
BigCommerce had already tried outsourcing in Romania and Ukraine. It hadn’t worked. Outsourced developers were shared across clients – no dedicated focus on BigCommerce’s platform, no long-term commitment, no real integration into the product team. The people doing the work weren’t BigCommerce engineers. They were borrowed vendor resources with divided attention – not at all what it takes to scale aggressively.
What BigCommerce needed was a turnkey model: one partner who could set up the entire operation – office, compliant hiring, recruitment, and payroll – and scale it fast, cost-effectively, without BigCommerce needing to establish a legal entity or pull engineering leadership into operational logistics. Committed engineers who worked exclusively on their platform. A true in-house team, not a vendor arrangement.
Solution
Alcor took on full operational ownership of BigCommerce’s R&D expansion in Eastern Europe – from the office lease to the first hire to ongoing compliance.
Our real estate team identified an office location that matched BigCommerce’s requirements, negotiated the best possible lease terms, and equipped the space. The office was operational in one month. BigCommerce’s leadership spent zero hours on landlord negotiations or procurement.
Our 40 in-house tech recruiters ran full-cycle hiring on BigCommerce’s behalf – sourcing only from the top 10% of Ukraine’s tech market, with market intelligence and salary benchmarking provided alongside. No bulk applications, no shared resources – just targeted search. The precision showed: two roles were closed with just 2 CVs each.With a network of 325,000+ pre-vetted candidates, Alcor’s recruiters moved fast and precisely. 30 Silicon Valley-caliber engineers were hired in just 6 months. 20 more engineers joined later.
Alcor also provided Employer of Record services, ensuring full compliance with local laws and financial stability for the team, so BigCommerce could hire confidently without establishing a legal entity of its own. For engineers engaged on a B2B model, Alcor guided the entire process in full alignment with local labor law.
Results
Build Your AI Engineering Team in 30 Days
No vendor chaos. 0 compliance risk. No more recruiting delays.
Alcor Helped Build the Foundation for Everything That Followed
Alcor builds BigCommerce’s Ukraine R&D team: 50 engineers, office launched, full compliance & ops in place
BigCommerce goes public on NASDAQ in a $249M IPO, valuing the company at $1.47B on listing day
Acquires Feedonomics, adding omnichannel feed management and data transformation capabilities to the platform
Launches Multi-Storefront capabilities for complex catalogs and global localization
Parent company rebrands to Commerce (Nasdaq: CMRC); named Challenger in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Digital Commerce Platforms for the sixth consecutive year; revenue reaches $342.3M
Use our calculator to estimate your team budget before any conversations starts
Clients Love Us. Teams Do Too.
“The Alcor team has always been supportive and approachable whenever assistance was needed. Rather than feeling like an external resource, engineers working through Alcor are able to integrate closely with the client’s teams. This creates a more collaborative environment and allows engineers to have a greater impact.”
“My overall experience has been outstanding. Alcor’s model offered the right balance — strong operational support combined with genuine ownership and long-term collaboration. In this model, I am a core member of the team. Rather than rotating between projects, I can invest meaningfully in improving the product and establishing processes that deliver lasting value.”
“Whenever I’ve had tricky bank requests or needed extra documentation, Alcor has resolved everything rapidly. I also love their support with business trips and expense tracking—it’s incredibly convenient. Their team is always available via messenger and ready to help. Highly recommended for anyone who wants a hassle-free professional life!”
“Alcor has been a reliable partner throughout, especially in complex situations. Issues are resolved quickly — often within minutes or hours. Their ability to adapt and support us in complex situations has made a real difference for our team.”
