Enabling brands to sell more with effortless ecommerce logistics, Bigblue has just secured €13.6 million in Series A funding. The funding for the Parisian company was led by Runa Capital with LPV as the secondary lead investor and additional participation from existing investor Samaipata.
Founded in 2018, Bigblue provides customers with a fulfilment platform that helps independent brands compete with the likes of Amazon delivery. It offers prime-like delivery services, branded tracking emails and a dedicated returns portal to enable a superior customer experience.
Ecommerce is one of the fastest-growing sectors across the world at the moment and giants such as Amazon and Zalando have invested billions in software and infrastructure to optimise customer experiences. However, they have done so with optimisation for their own business – not working on a universal basis.
In order to sell effectively, and compete with the likes of ecommerce giants, brands needs need to develop solutions tailored to their own needs. This is where Bigblue comes in – supporting these brands. Bigblue’s all-in-one platform is optimised for each independent brand and helps companies selling online deliver the best and most unique customer experience.
Tim Dumain, co-founder explained: “Powering independent brands in France since 2018, Bigblue does not simply offer a fulfilment solution that matches Amazon standards – we aim to make it easy for brands to grow online.”
The disruptive startup provides shipping automation, transport optimisation, branded post-purchase communications, and more. The company operates an intelligent European warehouse and carrier network that uses AI to pick the best shipping method for each shipment and ensure fast and green fulfilment. With Bigblue, brands can even add a personalised insert to their packages, customise their packaging, or tell their story in shipping notifications.
Already, the company has more than 300 client brands, and in 2022 will ship 4 million parcels from 3 different countries. All Bigblue services are included in a single cost, and the company has native integrations with Shopify and other leading ecommerce platforms — they allow sellers to create an account in minutes, send inventory into the Bigblue network, and start selling with fast, branded fulfilment in as little as one week.
Further, with a new programme called Fast Tags, Bigblue is now helping brands to reduce their marketing costs – it automatically pushes eligible buyers a 98% accurate 1-day delivery time along their purchase journey. It’s been reported that early adopters have seen a significant increase of 20-40% in conversion, saving them substantial amounts in acquisition costs.
Reflecting the need to embed sustainability into business practices – Bigblue also has committed itself to help make logistics greener. Its believed that currently, about 85% of people globally prefer to buy from sustainable brands, and logistics has a key role to play in improving the environmental impact of ecommerce. The young startup is working hand-in-hand with its merchants to match with their expectations in sustainability: its proprietary technology optimises transport routes and truck filling, reducing carbon emissions by 25%. In addition, parcels are delivered via cargo bikes and electric vehicles in major cities, all packaging is plastic-free and recyclable, and the company’s warehouses are Ecocert certified.
With the fresh capital boost, Bigblue plans to hire 100 new people over the next 12 months in sales, marketing and operations, and triple its engineering staff. It opened its first international office in Madrid earlier this year and is planning further European expansion over the course of 2022 – alongside the goal to expand low-carbon 1-day delivery to all of Western Europe, help national brands to become European, by supporting them in their internationalisation, continue to improve the post-shopping experience and extend its FastTag Program to help more brands get rid of overwhelming acquisition costs.
Dmitry Chikhachev, General Partner at Runa Capita commented: “Runa Capital sees Bigblue as a crucial part of the online merchants’ tech stack and believes that the ecommerce market will continue to grow at an impressive pace in the future. We’re confident the team has everything to become the European leader in ecommerce fulfilment.”
