STORD RAISES $2.4 MILLION IN SEED FUNDING TO GROW CATEGORY LEADING WAREHOUSING & DISTRIBUTION PLATFORM
Company expands team and software capabilities as it increases its warehousing facility footprint and offers improved supply chain optimization for its customers with data analytics
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Atlanta-based STORD, has raised $2.4 million in seed funding to expand its team and software capabilities while it increases its warehousing facility footprint. This venture capital round was led by Susa Ventures and Dynamo and includes investments from Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund and Atlanta-based corporate backed fund, the Engage Fund. STORD is a provider of a real-time global warehousing network that connects independent, third-party warehouses via an enterprise software platform to drive inventory efficiency.
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ATLANTA, April 18, 2018 -- STORD INC., a software-enabled network of warehouses & distribution centers, announced today the completion of a $2.4M seed round of funding. The funding will be used to further enhance STORD’s software, expand their team, and continue the expansion of their growing customer base. Susa Ventures and Dynamo co-led the round with participation from various funds such as Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund and the Engage Fund, an Atlanta-based fund comprised of 11 of the nation’s largest corporations. The company has previously raised $230k and completed the Dynamo Accelerator program in 2016.
“We believe there is a huge opportunity to bring modern technology to the logistics and warehouse industry.” said Chad Byers, co-founder and General Partner at Susa Ventures. “As we’ve seen through our early investment in Flexport, a global technology-powered freight forwarder, there is tremendous value in building a software layer that sits above underlying operators and asset owners. In doing so, we believe STORD can build the world’s largest virtual distribution network, delivering insight and efficiency for customers and asset owners.”
Co-Founders of STORD, Sean Henry (CEO) and Jacob Boudreau (CTO) started the company in 2015. STORD has innovated in the legacy warehousing and distribution industry by creating a platform that allows for flexible warehousing. Henry and Boudreau’s rapid expansion of STORD within the logistics industry has landed the pair on the 2018 Forbes 30 Under 30 list for Manufacturing and Industry. Additionally, the company was featured by INC.com as one of “America’s Top 30 Emerging Companies of 2017.”
STORD, which has launched in over 100 warehouses in the United States, is a software-enabled warehousing company; it provides warehousing nationwide by connecting a proprietary network of facilities nationwide through an enterprise-level software platform. STORD’s supply chain software gives customers access to inventory, order management, product analytics, and smart optimization tools to enable data-driven product distribution.
Customers can centralize their distribution with STORD’s software and quickly expand to new markets. The platform allows optimization of facility locations and inventory stocking levels which saves on last mile delivery and inventory holding costs. The average customer of STORD is saving 25 minutes of manual operations on each order while centralizing their data to gain insight and control over their supply chain.
“Today’s businesses have dynamic needs and as a result, rigid and inflexible warehouse/distribution practices are under-serving the needs of customers.” said Santosh Sankar of Dynamo. “STORD remains focused on customers and is on a path to virtualize warehousing resources and provide a more nimble/flexible relationship without losing sight of customer service.
The $163B warehousing industry suffers from severe fragmentation. There are roughly 9,000 warehouse facilities in the U.S. and nearly 6,000 of those are run by independent or mid-sized operators. The largest 3,000 are owned by only 60 companies. This fragmentation forces shippers to rely on different warehouses in each market creating a siloed process. STORD’s supply chain management technology is designed to allow a shipper to manage their product at scale, by giving them access to the most expansive footprint of any 3PL, while allowing the customer to manage everything from an intuitive online platform.
“STORD saw the unique opportunity to take a massive, fragmented industry like warehousing and distribution and win by owning the customer relationship and the software rather than owning the physical asset itself. It is another great example of founders solving big problems in cities beyond the coastal tech hubs” said J.D. Vance, Managing Partner of Revolution’s Rise of the Rest Seed Fund.
STORD is continuing to build out its proprietary network of warehouses nationwide and is launching new features for customers to better analyze and optimize their product distribution. STORD has a growing client-base and is using the round of funding to continue their growth.
For more information on STORD visit STORD.com or email info@stord.com.