The warehousing space is as hot as it has ever been, and STORD, a cloud supply chain company, is among the entrants giving businesses of all sizes access to the warehouse capacity and solutions they need to compete.
The company Wednesday morning announced the closing of its Series C funding round of $65 million. Led by BOND, the funding adds to previous totals, including a Series B round of $31 million that closed in December.
“We help our customers compete on a global scale with a new approach to distribution and fulfillment, utilizing the best infrastructure and technology,” said Sean Henry, co-founder and CEO of STORD. “STORD is becoming the cloud and network infrastructure of physical distribution for today’s largest and fastest-growing brands, and the recent investments are accelerating the growth of our network.”
BOND was joined in the latest round by Lineage Logistics, Salesforce Ventures, and existing investors Dynamo Ventures, Founders Fund and Susa Ventures.
STORD provides an end-to-end solution for shippers through a cloud-based platform connected to over 500 warehouses and 20,000 carriers. The company offers national warehouse capacity, digital freight shipping, an integrated logistics network and two-day fulfillment for e-commerce orders from anywhere in the U.S.
In an interview with Modern Shipper, Henry noted the accelerated growth in e-commerce in 2020 due to the pandemic, and the need for retailers, brands and shippers of all sizes to have flexibility in their logistics operations.
“Our mission at STORD is that we help retailers and e-commerce brands deliver products faster and in a more optimized way then they can alone,” he said, noting that 2020 proved an inflection point for e-commerce through a series of micro-events, including COVID-19, port congestion, ice storms and more.
“All together, it exposed the fragility of a traditional supply chain,” Henry said. “[The traditional supply chain] doesn’t adapt quickly, and these events exposed the fragility of that, and it provided STORD [an opportunity].”
The company said it doubled its headcount in 2020 and is projecting to do so again in 2021, with Henry saying employee numbers could reach 250. STORD posted revenue gains of 500% in 2020, he added, with projections of doubling it in 2021.
Among STORD’s customers are Schneider Electric, Dollar General and Tyson Foods.
Henry noted STORD has now raised over $100 million in the past six months and will use that money to build a “world-class team” and to “obsess over our customers.” That obsession will lead to new features and expanding infrastructure to ensure optimized delivery flow for customer goods. Software development will also continue, Henry said, pointing to the fact that the fastest-growing revenue segment of the company in 2020 was software.
All of these additions will aid STORD in enabling “fulfillment opportunity across the omnichannel,” Henry said.
“The more we are the cloud supply chain for our customers, the more they can focus on [their core attributes], equipping them with a more agile and competitive business,” he added.
Among the investors in this latest round are companies that provide synergies with STORD, Henry said, citing BOND, an enterprise software provider, Salesforce Ventures and its connection to customer relationship management company Salesforce, and Lineage Logistics, a top logistics firm.
“Anytime a company has the opportunity to align and [capitalize] with the right business partners as well, it drives a strategic [benefit],” Henry said.
“Distribution is critical in accelerating the adoption of e-commerce,” said Adam Ghetti, adviser to BOND. “STORD is helping to democratize access to the logistics software traditionally only available to the world’s largest retailers. By providing smaller retailers access to the sophisticated technology that the industry’s leading retailers are using, they will be better positioned to win in an increasingly competitive marketplace.”
Click for more Modern Shipper articles by Brian Straight.
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