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ShipBob
The pandemic boosted e-commerce and brought more venture capital funding to logistics startups.
VCs have traditionally avoided asset-heavy startups.
In 2020, asset-heavy e-commerce logistics startups raised more than $450 million.
When Dhruv Saxena first started fundraising for his startup ShipBob in 2014, he knew that finding the right investors was just as important as funding his startup at all. Seven years later, his most recent round was led by SoftBank with Y Combinator, Menlo Ventures, Bain Capital Ventures, and Hyde Park Ventures in tow.
Saxena founded ShipBob with the intention of seizing on a particular segment of e-commerce businesses. Third-party logistics companies that handle warehousing and fulfillment had fallen behind in their technology adoption, as Saxena tells it. Their manual processes meant small customers didn t have a place in their business model since it cost too much to onboard and support them.