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Deliverr is an end-to-end ecommerce fulfillment technology platform that provides online merchants with a simple way to enable lightning-fast shipping in order to boost their revenue and customer experience.

As ecommerce marketplaces grow, so does the complexity of fulfilling goods across channels. Meanwhile, customers expect faster fulfillment for less.

With a single self-serve platform, Deliverr allows merchants small and large to seamlessly open up new sales channels, rank higher in search, and fulfill goods as fast as the industry’s best, all while eliminating inventory allocation and fulfillment headaches.

Deliverr does so via a network of warehouse partners orchestrated with predictive demand planning technology; and crucially, they take responsibility for the entire process, producing a unified supply chain that levels the ecommerce playing field.

Deliverr were already in a good position, but they needed more funding and the right people to come on board.

Activant

 8VC

 DHVC

 GLP

 9Yards Capital

Coatue

Brookfield Technology Partners

Tiger Global Management

Giving independent businesses Amazon-like fulfillment power

Shopify Completes Acquisition of Deliverr

Shopify acquires shipping logistics startup Deliverr for $2.1B

Deliverr bags another giant round as it works to move inventory closer to customers

Deliverr raises $170 million to scale an affordable alternative to Amazon Prime.

Legend has it that the first online purchase was a CD of Sting’s Ten Summoner’s Tales in 1994.

Now, it’s hard to imagine a world without e-commerce.

One of the key players driving customer behavior has been Amazon, which has fundamentally reshaped customer expectations with its seamless, one-click check-out and fast shipping.

Due to significant investment over the years Amazon has built the world’s most sophisticated e-commerce fulfilment engine and can offer same-day and one-day delivery to 72% of the total U.S. population. 

While we as consumers all have our favorite brands and retailers, Amazon’s speed of delivery is just too good to ignore.

30% of consumers consider shipping speed when making an online purchase decision, tilting the odds heavily in favor of large, vertically-integrated players that have mastered the nuances and challenges of increasingly complex global supply chains.

This puts a lot of pressure on independent retailers.

This is a classic David and Goliath size problem. How can independents compete with Amazon’s fulfilment dominance?

David vs. Goliath

The market for enabling and empowering independent businesses is growing rapidly.

From Square to Shopify there are a growing number of technology start-ups founded explicitly to support independent producers and retailers with the software infrastructure to compete with large, scale players.

Fulfilment and delivery one is the key challenges for independent retailers to address.

Fast, affordable delivery requires huge networks of fulfilment centers spanning the country, carefully orchestrated logistics, and complex enterprise technology.

For most retailers, trying to compete with the bigger players in this realm simply means losing money and customers.

Deliverr, launched in September 2017, offered small e-commerce businesses 2-day shipping options that allowed them to compete more effectively for business.

Activant had completed a lot of detailed thesis work on e-commerce infrastructure and companies enabling small online merchants to succeed, and Deliverr stood out. Its compelling value proposition and bold vision had the potential to scale.


After several conversations, we were impressed with the clarity of Harish’s vision, along with his attention to detail and intimate knowledge of the nuances the business required.

Activant founder, Steve Sarracino, reached out to Harish.

As a second-time entrepreneur Harish seemed prepared for the challenges that would come with scaling.

Harish’s background wasn’t just in commerce, he was at Amazon in the very early days when they only shipped books. 

Having helped build the fulfillment and storefront capabilities of Amazon, he was instrumental in getting the first Harry Potter book out to millions of users before it showed up in B&N stores.

Unique insights by working at the toughest competitor: Amazon

Building something truly distinctive requires founders to understand their own strengths, and to see the value in complementary skills.

By winning over eBay and Walmart the two founders showed they could convince big stakeholders to come onboard.

Both companies added Deliverr fast-shipping tags to their checkouts for individual sellers, following positive conversations with Harish and Michael.

Winning over big stakeholders

“In Michael I found this very complementary skill set.”

“We view the world of fulfillment as a data problem, not as a physical infrastructure problem. We figure out the demand graph for an item based on existing order data or similar items that we’ve fulfilled before—then we put that item physically close to the high demand pockets.”

Harish and Michael refined the Deliverr business model and developed a compelling growth strategy.

Rather than purchase their own facilities—that is, follow Amazon’s model—Deliverr leases its warehouse space.


With ten warehouses—in states like California, Texas, Missouri, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New Jersey—the company was expanding. The number of warehouses was increasing weekly, and customers were storing inventory in three to five locations at a time, relying on Deliverr’s predictive technology.

Despite this there were no signs they had grown at the expense of customer service. They were ready to scale faster.

“To bring in players as big as eBay and Walmart at this stage and not show signs of slowing down or diluting the product, this was hugely impressive. This wasn’t just a disruptive company, this was the beginnings of a company that could transform an industry at scale.”

Neeta Rastogi Singh,
COO at Activant Capital Group

Growing the company did not stopped innovation.

With new cash from the Series B fundraising, the team worked to improve their machine learning capabilities to better predict customer demand, inform their stocking strategy and decrease delivery time.

Hiring talent from Amazon, Google, and other top companies, Deliverr’s team has both hands-on e-commerce fulfillment experience and the ability to build large-scale software platforms.

We were proud to lead the $40 million Series C, bringing in total capital raised to $70 million, to help them continue and expand their operations.

Having mastered two day delivery, we believed the team had the ability to pull off their ambition of one-day delivery.

“The most important quality in potential hires is their ability to solve complex problems. If you are able to find a candidate who can take a huge problem, break it down and find a clear solution, you have a winner. This applies to virtually every level and title, whether it is a senior engineer role or entry-level position, and it is something I try to measure in every interview I conduct.”

Since then and the Series D, which we also took part in, more than half the country lives within 100 miles of a Deliverr warehouse.

In less than four years, the company has raced from rounds A to D, raising $240 million along the way.

Even with new funding Harish remains incredibly hungry, focused and relentless.

In 2021, Deliverr plan on rapidly expanding their next-day delivery coverage across the country, providing an excellent, Prime-like customer experience for all their merchants.

Moreover, they aim to grow their existing network of 50 warehouses and launch fast new shipping programs with leading sales and marketing channels.

Deliverr and its 250+ employees are growing the company 4x year-on-year while fulfilling a critical market need and delighting customers along the way.

This is only the first round of David vs Goliath, there’s more to come.

With our support, Deliverr have identified and hired top talent to oversee the rapid expansion of the business.

Hiring

We led the Series C of fundraising and participated and helped with the Series D.

Fundraising

At Activant, we have been on the front lines of investing in the infrastructure of global commerce for the best part of the last decade. Software and the internet have fundamentally changed the way that goods are made, moved and sold. The biggest tectonic shifts of commerce has naturally been the growth of e-commerce, 

While e-commerce has traditionally been dominated by a few leading-edge online retailers, the last decade saw incredible democratization of selling online. Today, there are an 

 competing to sell everything from fashion to pharmaceuticals globally (excluding China!). These sellers will make up an important share of the 

nearly 100 billion parcels sent globally.

Despite all of these independent merchants, just a few platforms are still capturing the lion’s share of e-commerce spend and have won by offering frictionless checkout and fast shipping. As a result, they have conditioned consumers to expect this kind of shopping experience: nearly 30% of consumers consider delivery speed when 

making a decision to purchase something online

. The reality is, however, that most companies simply do not have the scale to compete.

To keep up in today’s environment, online retailers have been 

 of moving their products and cutting into their bottom line. More and more companies are now 

 to outside parties as the pace of change and investment costs become unsustainable for organizations not set up to operate an increasingly complex supply chain.

Deliverr enables every company to offer fast, affordable and reliable fulfilment with their completely turnkey and self-service platform.

Deliverr’s world-class team is using technology to solve this fulfillment problem once and for all for these online merchants by taking the entire process off their customers’ hands. Deliverr enables every company to offer fast, affordable, and reliable fulfillment with their completely turnkey and self-service platform. Deliverr can do this by building data-driven and personalized fulfillment plans for every one of their merchant customers while partnering with a vast network of warehouses and logistics service providers to orchestrate the fulfillment journey from end-to-end.

Deliverr’s technology allows merchants to do what was, in the past, mutually exclusive: they can increase sales by up to 30% while improving delivery times. At the same time, they reduce their fulfillment cost and the amount of operational work they need to devote to managing their shipping. No surprise, then, that Deliverr grew over 1000% last year… and it doesn’t look like they’re slowing down.

We are incredibly proud to be working alongside Harish, Michael, and the entire Deliverr team to help them build out the future of commerce.

announced their $40MM Series C financing to offer a world-class turnkey e-commerce fulfillment platform to retailers. We at Activant Capital led the round and are excited to be working alongside fellow investors GLP and 8VC.

Why we’re investing in Deliverr.

Fulfillment superpowers for all

Read why we invested

Deliverr

Founders who aspire to build something bigger than themselves chose to partner with us at their most critical point.

Founded in 2015, Activant is a global investment firm with $1.5 B AUM that partners with high-growth founders and teams that are transforming commerce.

We’re always looking to learn about new perspectives, new research, and new ideas.

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Activant is a research-led global investment firm that partners with high-growth companies.

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