Austria-based e-commerce startup Byrd announced that it raised $56M in a Series C funding round. It was led by Florida-based Cambridge Capital, Austrian Speedinvest, Elevator Ventures and Uniqa Ventures, London-based Mouro Capital, and others, including Greece-based VentureFriends as a previous investor.
The company’s e-commerce solution is a virtual network that provides various fulfillment services to online retailers across Europe. According to Byrd’s CEO and co-founder Alexander Leichter, e-commerce retailers are already under immense pressure to deliver as fast as possible and therefore they must search for alternatives and scalable fulfillment services. This is where fulfillment partners and warehousing solutions come into the picture.
“The global supply chain crunch is putting increasing pressure on margins and creating significant delivery issues. This means retailers must look for scalable fulfillment services that cover their core markets globally. When we were approached by Cambridge Capital, we decided that it was the right time to combine our significant momentum in the last year with their expertise in tech-enabled logistics investments to speed up our growth plans,” Leichter said.
Byrd’s mission is to create an independent fulfillment network across Europe and locations in more than 10 European countries. The company will also use the funds to expand and strengthen its presence in existing markets and local teams, while also opening up to new markets such as Poland, Sweden, and Denmark during the year.
Well positioned to succeed in e-commerce
According to Greek VC VentureFriends, one of the previous investors in Byrd, the startup is in a great position to succeed in e-commerce since it provides retailers with a flexible warehousing and logistics infrastructure in all major European countries.
“At VentureFriends we are big believers in the general space that enables e-commerce. Byrd has grown fast during the last years and has supported 100s of customers around Europe. The new funding round is a testament of their success and allows them to grow further and expand in more countries as we saw with the recent launch in Spain and Italy,” Apostolos Apostolakis, partner and co-founder at Venture Friends, tells The Recursive.
While the company also has employees in Greece, for Apostolakis in the long run Byrd will also help Greek and other regional retailers.
“The key connection and benefit is that we supported a company that can help Greek and regional retailers selling in Europe improve their offering to those customers by providing quicker delivery,” Apostolakis explains.
According to Cambridge Capital, the lead investor in the latest round, Byrd is one of the fastest-growing companies they have ever seen.
“We were convinced by their tech-driven approach and proprietary warehouse management software, which enables Byrd to run an asset-light fulfillment network. Byrd’s broad coverage of the European market, excellent customer momentum, and strong satisfaction with both retailers and warehouse partners appealed to us right away,” Matt Smalley, principal at Cambridge Capital pointed out.
For Elevator Ventures, one of the leading investors in Series C, Byrd has immense growth potential.
“State-of-the-art logistics and fulfillment management are crucial for the success of e-commerce merchants, as are payment options and financing of their business transactions. We see immense potential in the fast-growing network of Byrd and want to support with our contacts and know-how in financial services,” Maximilian Schausberger, managing director at Elevator Ventures, tells The Recursive.
The warehouse solutions provider and fulfillment partner expects to have close to 400 employees by the end of 2022, with offices in Vienna, London, Paris, Barcelona, Berlin, and Milan.
