French startup Bigblue has raised a $15 million Series A funding round. The company operates an order fulfillment platform for direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands. In other words, a D2C brand can outsource all things related to logistics to Bigblue so that they can focus on product and marketing.
Runa Capital is leading the round, with LPV acting as the “secondary lead investor.” Existing investor Samaipata is also participating once again.
The startup currently operates in three countries — France, Spain and the U.K. It has signed partnerships with five different warehouses representing over 60,000 square meters of storage space. Bigblue customers can ship their products directly to these warehouses so that they are stored and managed by Bigblue.
After that, every time a customer orders something from a Bigblue client, the product is shipped to the end customer using Bigblue’s carrier network. The startup has integrations with more than 20 different carriers and can ship all across Europe — and even globally, but finding different D2C fulfillment partners in other markets might be a smarter move.
Bigblue lets you customize your packaging and add flyers in the package to personalize the experience for end customers. And if there’s something wrong, customers are invited to file a return request on a branded return portal. It supports store credit as well as refunds.
“With this new round we will support scaling service offerings for Bigblue’s growing base of online merchants, fuel hiring efforts, and continue to position the company as the leader in the D2C fulfillment space,” co-founder and CEO Tim Dumain said in a statement.
The result is quite simple. Bigblue wants to offer an Amazon-like experience, but with a third-party logistics stack. Bigblue integrates with many different sales channels, such as Shopify, WooCommerce, PrestaShop, Wix and Magento, as well as various marketplaces on Cdiscount, Fnac and, yes, Amazon.
It means that you can promise free one-day or two-day deliveries across various marketplaces. And this is key when it comes to getting picked as the main seller on a product page on an online marketplace. Customers also get branded tracking emails.
The startup competes with other D2C e-commerce logistics companies, such as Cubyn, Hive and Huboo. Overall, Bigblue has managed to attract 300 customers, such as From Future, Unbottled and We Are Jolies. The company plans to ship 4 million parcels this year. Over the next 12 months, the startup plans to hire another 100 employees and expand across Western Europe.