Sendle, an Australian e-commerce shipping company which opened a Seattle headquarters in 2019, raised $35 million in a Series C funding round to expand in the U.S.
The company helps small e-commerce businesses by taking advantage of unused space in existing delivery trucks. The idea is to speed up delivery times for smaller players and keep up with giants such as Amazon that have shifted consumer expectations for shipping speed and cost.
Sendle integrates with platforms including Etsy, eBay and Shopify. Merchants purchase a shipping label and schedule a time for pickup from Sendle.
Sendle, also headquartered in Sydney, has 800,000 global users. The startup is riding tailwinds from the recent pandemic-driven e-commerce boom. Online retail sales increased 32.4% year-over-year in 2020 and was up 39% in Q1 of this year, according to Digital Commerce 360.
The pandemic forced both large and small businesses to move efforts online with increased rates from traditional delivery services from FedEx and UPS, the company said. Sendle is able to offer lower prices than USPS, UPS and FedEx with its delivery model.
Small e-commerce shops aren’t shipping the volume required to secure advantageous rates or convenient services, Sendle CEO and founder James Chin Moody told GeekWire in 2019. They also can’t absorb high shipping costs. That’s a problem as consumers expect fast shipping and might abandon a purchase if shipping fees aren’t waived.
Sendle calls itself the first carbon-neutral shipping company in the U.S. It purchases carbon offsets to mitigate its environmental impacts and also offers compostable packaging.
Moody was previously an executive at CSIRO, Australia’s national research agency.
Sendle’s recent funding round was led by Afterpay-backed AP Ventures and returning investors including Federation, Full Circle and NRMA. The money will be used to build out Sendle’s network of logistics, delivery and tech partners.
Seattle is home to several startups that provide e-commerce logistics software and services. Others from the Seattle region that have raised funding over the past year include Flexe, Stackline, Fabric, Shipium, FlavorCloud, Pipe17, Pandion, and SoundCommerce.
News Source: GeekWire
