Helping Online Merchants Scale: ShipMonk Raises $290M To Meet E-commerce Demand

ShipMonk, now armed with a $290 million growth equity investment from Summit Partners, is poised to enter its next phase.

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Prior to this investment, the Fort Lauderdale, Florida-headquartered provider of direct-to-consumer fulfillment and technology tools was essentially bootstrapped and profitable since it was founded in 2014, with the exception of a $10 million Series A round in 2018, led by SJF Ventures, ShipMonk CEO Jan Bednar told Crunchbase News.

“We provide e-commerce companies with the tech-enabled fulfillment and logistics network they need to compete with more established companies,” Bednar said. “We integrate with the channels they are selling on and handle the picking, packing and shipping of the products to give them an enterprise level of service without the overhead.”

The financing represents a minority stake in the business and Bednar’s goal of reaching the next level of growth. His Series A partners in 2018 assisted ShipMonk to achieve the $10 million to $30 million revenue range, and with Summit on board, he expects to become a $150 million to $500 million–and even a $1 billion–company.

“We’ve gotten to an inflection point where there is so much growth to be had in the market,” Bednar said. “We’ve established ourselves as leaders in the space, and to keep that advantage we are bringing on another partner to help. We are super excited to partner with Summit to do that.”

The National Retail Federation predicts e-commerce holiday sales will grow by 20 percent this year and reach as high as $218 billion. Figures from Black Friday show $9 billion in online purchases, up nearly 22 percent compared to last year, according to data from Adobe Analytics.

With consumer spending continuing its shift to online–a trend boosted by the global pandemic–Bednar is seeing more demand for ShipMonk’s services.

Growth has doubled every year: revenue was $28 million in 2018, and is expected to be north of $140 million this year, he said. At the same time, its customer base has doubled over the past 12 months to more than 1,000 e-commerce businesses, which represented 115 percent more fulfilled orders than the same time period in 2019.

As such, the company plans to put the new investment to work in hiring new employees, including doubling its R&D department and rounding out its leadership team. In addition, ShipMonk is developing B2B fulfillment capabilities to complement its direct-to-consumer approach.

The company has facilities in Fort Lauderdale; Pittston, Pennsylvania; and Los Angeles; as well as its newest one in Prague. The new investment will also go toward further expansion, which includes building another facility in Texas.

Meanwhile, Summit Partners’ Managing Director Christopher Dean and Vice President Chelsea Jurman will join ShipMonk’s board.

“We believe ShipMonk truly demonstrates the power of a bootstrapped, durable growth mindset,” Dean said in a written statement. “Jan identified a significant gap in the market and, together with the ShipMonk team, has scaled the business in a deliberate and capital efficient manner to address that need. The results have been impressive.”

Photo of Jan Bednar, founder and CEO of ShipMonk, courtesy of the company
Illustration: Dom Guzman