ShipMonk, a leading provider of e-commerce fulfillment and technology solutions, today announced a $65 million infusion of growth equity from Periphas Capital. The deal closely follows a $290 million growth equity round from Summit Partners, raised in December. ShipMonk’s total funding now exceeds $365 million, including previous funding from SJF Ventures, Grotech Ventures and Supply Chain Ventures. The latest financing comes as the company further accelerates its growth and international expansion to support more customers with new locations, expanded carrier partnerships and technology enhancements to its platform. Periphas Capital Managing Partner, Sanjeev Mehra, will join ShipMonk’s Board of Directors.
According to the National Retail Federation, e-commerce demand increased by more than 20% for the 2020 holiday season, accounting for upwards of $200 billion in spending, as droves of consumers went online during the pandemic. Online retailers, particularly small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), scaling their businesses seemingly overnight, looked to technology to streamline the fulfillment and inventory management of their back-end business operations. Against this backdrop, ShipMonk’s annual revenue doubled in 2020, driven by a 100% growth in its customer base and soaring order volumes that grew more than 115% year-over-year at their November peak.
“The leadership team led by Jan Bednar has built a nimble and entrepreneurial culture and are growing at a hyper-scale pace,” said Sanjeev Mehra, Managing Partner of Periphas Capital and new ShipMonk Board member. “We believe ShipMonk benefits from three growth curves: explosion in e-commerce, consumer preference for digitally native direct-to-consumer brands, and a shift by SMBs to outsource logistics with technology they can’t build themselves.”
“Our technology platform allows merchants to delegate the hassle of managing order fulfillment, tracking inventory throughout warehouses, and dealing with fluctuating shipping circumstances so they can focus on scaling their business,” said ShipMonk Founder and CEO, Jan Bednar. “Working with ShipMonk means orders arrive when you say they will, which is always important, but particularly so when a buyer is counting on a gift delivery to celebrate a holiday or special occasion. We treat every order as a holiday delivery order.”
Customer Experience, Delivered
ShipMonk was founded in 2014, by CEO Jan Bednar, inspired by a personal need, as he experienced difficulty getting U.S. merchants to ship internationally to his native country, the Czech Republic. ShipMonk’s proprietary e-commerce management platform solves a number of significant pain points for digitally native e-commerce brands by providing:
- Seamless order integration, inventory and warehouse management, and shipping optimization
- The creation of automated, low-cost e-fulfillment solutions with high customer satisfaction and outstanding metrics
- Global reach, enabling merchants to ship items and service demand around the world
- Small businesses the ability to compete with bigger, more established retailers
Today, ShipMonk’s API integrations sync with leading shopping cart and marketplace platforms, such as Shopify, to automatically import orders across every sales channel and support a seamless and quick fulfillment experience.
ShipMonk’s U.S. warehouse locations offer automation for quicker fulfillment, more accurate item picking and secure storage of goods. The warehouses are strategically located throughout the United States to facilitate 2-day delivery nationally and next day delivery to major metropolitan areas. Customers save up to 50% of the operational costs compared to doing fulfillment in house. ShipMonk also extends its globally optimized shipping carrier network to merchants for additional cost savings. The company plans to expand internationally with the opening of its flagship European fulfillment center in mid-2021.
Full Seasonality Support, Diverse Shipping Options
ShipMonk’s platform scales for peak times and volumes to meet increased demand in November and December and manages reverse logistics for necessary returns in January. Additionally, ShipMonk’s network of carrier relationships delivers the diversity needed to minimize delivery delays. This season, ShipMonk helped its merchants navigate major shipping carrier lag times by balancing throughput with regional providers. The platform allows merchants to offer a seamless returns experience by integrating with leading returns management platforms such as Returnly and Optoro. Automation shaves down the overall cost of shipping and handling to help merchants get the best margins as they scale operations and meet product demand.
“Starting our e-commerce business, the last thing my co-founders and I wanted to try to do on our own was deal with the complexities of fulfillment. Having ShipMonk as our partner was critical in supporting our rapid growth, as our brands went from $0 to $75 million in sales in less than 24 months,” said Kevin Gould, founder and CEO of Kombo Ventures, the consumer brand incubator and holding company that includes Glamnetic (magnetic liner and lashes), Wakeheart (fragrance and personal care products), and INH Hair (hair extensions and hot tools). “ShipMonk has scaled seamlessly along with us as we’ve grown and its technology is the foundation for helping keep pace with the growing demand to accurately fill orders and ship our products wherever they need to go.”
Accelerated Growth
Today, ShipMonk serves a growing base of B2C businesses including BrüMate, Liquid IV, Cuts Clothing, FEAT and CatLadyBox. As its customers’ needs grow beyond direct-to-consumer, ShipMonk is developing products and solutions to assist in the evolving needs of business-to-business fulfillment. ShipMonk is increasing its R&D as well as hiring to make this possible. Currently, the company employs 1,000 and intends to increase its headcount by 50% by the end of 2021.
“ShipMonk’s motto is to help its customers ‘stress less and grow more,’ and this is exactly what Periphas Capital can help do for ShipMonk’s business,” said Periphas Capital’s Mehra. “We believe ShipMonk is poised for significant growth from existing customers who are growing rapidly themselves, a large pipeline of new customers, as well as international expansion and omni-channel growth.”
Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC acted as financial advisor and Cooley LLP as a legal partner to ShipMonk on this transaction. Kirkland & Ellis LLP acted as legal advisor to Periphas Capital.
