San Francisco-based Flexport announced late last week that it has closed a $110 million Series C funding round led by DST Global, and joined by existing investors including Founders Fund and Susa Ventures. With the exception of Wells Fargo, who also made an equity investment in the round, almost the entire round was contributed by existing investors.
“We are excited to welcome Rahul Mehta of DST Global as an observer on Flexport’s board of directors,” said Ryan Petersen, founder and CEO of Flexport.
In a recent blog post Peterson also noted that the upstart company has added 500 employees in nine global offices over the past years.
“We’ve grown revenue by 3.7X, and Flexport is now a top-25 freight forwarder on the transpacific, ranking alongside the most established and respected names in logistics,” he says.
Ryan added that Flexport raised this round because they have proof that their model works, and that means “it’s time to double down.”
Flexport maintains that it is solving real problems in one of the world’s biggest markets, offering its clients greater visibility, more accurate data, more transparent pricing, and better customer service than conventional wisdom thought possible.
“We’re achieving that by using software to connect everyone who touches the global supply chain, whether it’s factories coordinating bookings, logistics teams collaborating on imports, or dispatchers relaying pickup details to truckers,”says Ryan.
Recent analysis notes that the entry of Amazon in the logistics space may have led to more urgency for Flexport. In interview with mainstream press, Petersen has observed that “there’s a lot of hesitancy to turn over sensitive data.”
He concludes in this blog post:
Trade is inherently social, and with every supply chain stakeholder who joins our platform, we get one step closer to fulfilling our dream of powering a seamless web of commerce. We won’t let up until we’ve made global trade easy for everyone on Earth.
Thank you to our investors for sharing this vision, to our amazing team for working every day to make it a reality, and to our clients for inspiring everything we build.