Dive Brief:
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First-mile delivery disruptor Shyp said Tuesday that it has raised another $50 million in a funding round led by Kleiner Perkins and joined by previous Shyp investors that values the company at more than $300 million.
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Kleiner Perkins partner John Doerr joins Shyp’s board of directors in the deal. The company plans to use the new funding to expand in the U.S. and engage in deeper partnerships with retailers.
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Shyp, unlike other delivery services these days, is focused on the first mile (picking up from home or office). It is working with the likes of FedEx and UPS, and is now operating in San Francisco, New York City (Manhattan and Brooklyn), Miami, and Los Angeles.
Dive Insight:
Shyp CEO-founder Kevin Gibbon made a mint in college selling on eBay and, despite that success, hated the time-consuming, cumbersome task of sending packages. Investor John Doerr is clearly sold on this idea of first-mile disruption, and this latest funding round for Shyp is also an indication of the ongoing appeal of app-enabled disruption in delivery in general.
The app is finding that returns are a key source of first-mile activity and has worked with retailers like Amazon, Gap, J. Crew, and Nordstrom to make online returns with just the order number or shipping label. Shyp has seen its number of shipments rise almost 500% year over year, and says its number of customers is growing 20% each month.
In March FedEx Corp. chairman-president-CEO-and founder Frederick W. Smith rejected the notion that crowd-sourced ride and delivery service Uber would hurt his company’s prospects, saying “there’s just an urban mythology out there that the app somehow changes the basic cost input of the logistics business or changes the circadian patterns or the underlying business situation.” Yet Shyp is one app-based delivery disruptor that could actually help FedEx in the logistics business.
