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ShipBob Inc., a company that helps small and midsize e-commerce companies fulfill orders, has reached a valuation of more than $1 billion with its latest round of funding.
The company’s $200 million Series E funding round—led by Bain Capital Ventures—comes nearly a year after the company announced a $68 million Series D round. That round was led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2. With the current round, ShipBob has raised $330.5 million.
ShipBob offers direct-to-consumer companies a platform that allows them to provide quick delivery like the kind consumers have come to expect from e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc. and retailer
Walmart Inc.
The company is one of an array of logistics-focused businesses that have seen surging demand for services amid a pandemic-driven upheaval in retail markets.
With consumers stuck at home last year as economies around the world shut down in an attempt to curb the spread of Covid-19, ShipBob, which was founded in 2014, saw a large uptick in the number of customers, according to Chief Executive
Dhruv Saxena.
He said ShipBob had between 1,200 and 1,500 customers on its platform as it entered 2020. It now has more than 5,000.
“Peak season is usually Black Friday through the week before Christmas… For us, the peak started in May and carried through the entirety of the year,” Mr. Saxena said. He added that even as things reopen, it appears that some e-commerce habits will become permanent.
In the last quarter of 2020, ShipBob turned a profit and was cash flow positive for the first time, according to the company.
ShipBob’s offerings include a cloud-based platform to manage orders, along with 24 fulfillment centers in the U.S., U.K. and Australia.
With the latest round of funding, ShipBob aims to add 35 more fulfillment centers by year’s end. It is also eyeing additional international expansion and increasing its ability to help clients with business-to-business orders, Mr. Saxena said.
Write to Allison Prang at [email protected] and Robert Barba at [email protected]
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