In less than 7 months after raising a pre-seed investment, Rush, the Bulgarian shipment tracking software for e-commerce, just closed a €2.5M seed round co-led by Eleven Ventures and LAUNCHub Ventures. The round is also backed by angels from the e-commerce tech industry, including existing investors Adii Pienaar, ex co-founder of WooCommerce, Casey Armstrong, CMO at Shipbob. Mihail Stoychev and Georgi Petrov, the co-founders of SMSBump who exited to Yotpo last year, also joined. Jonathan Kennedy, founder of HeyCarson, and the newly joined Yair Miron, founder of Rise.ai are among the angel investors of the Rush app.
The news follows the growth of the company’s client base to over 1200 Shopify stores of all sizes, to which the company brings on average 20X return on investment. The Rush app will use the investment to expand its development and support teams, as well as its network with agencies, technology platforms, and warehouse solutions.
“We know how competitive the e-commerce market is. Many store owners pay no attention to the post-purchase process and wonder why they can’t retain their customers. That’s why we built Rush, to transform the post-marketing experience into an automated system that attracts lifelong paying customers. Our team has grown to 24 people and we will continue to focus on expansion in the Shopify DTC post-purchase category,” Kiril Kirilov, CEO and co-founder of Rush, shares.
The best friend of online sellers
Founded in 2019 by Kiril Kirilov, who has a background in the e-commerce industry, and Stanislav Stankov who has experience in product management aims to help e-commerce businesses, individual merchants, and drop shippers to transform their shipment tracking pages into marketing opportunities.
The order tracking and notifying SaaS Shopify integration of the Rush app enables Shopify merchants and their customers to have post-purchase communication. The platform includes features such as a customizable tracking page with features for personalized messaging, product recommendations for upselling and cross-selling, and analytics and insights.
By using the Rush integration, Shopify-based store owners gain visibility into their shipments and keep their customers engaged with delivery notifications that automatically boost customer retention rates.
Traction and future plans
The Rush app is already servicing more than 1200 customers. It works with big international delivery companies including FedEx, DHL, China Post, Canada Post, and it is used by brands such as Eubi, Jane Lushka, Thousand Miles, and primalharvest.
Besides team expansion, Rush will also focus on product development to enable Shopify merchants to gain access to an untapped post-purchase revenue channel that can easily add 5-10% more to their bottom line. Some of the features in the product roadmap of Rush include one-click upsells and down-sells, SMS integrations, full control on the “Thank you!” and tracking pages, estimated time of arrival, and a Paypal integration.
The investor logic behind the investment
Due to supply chain issues, thousands of e-commerce merchants lose billions of dollars in post-purchase revenue. But at the same time, 94% of consumers blame retailers for poor delivery experiences and 74% of consumers believe that delivery is the most important factor in the shopping experience.
“Rush enables brands to create better post-purchase shopping experiences, turning a mundane experience into a delightful one. I believe the best brands of tomorrow are those that can be truly customer-centric at scale and Rush is already perfectly geared towards empowering those brands,” Adii Pienaar, co-founder of WooCommerce and Conversio, explains in a press release.
Vassil Terziev, Partner at Eleven Ventures, also shares that what has made an impression on the Eleven team is that Rush already has positive reviews of clients as it has helped them improve customer satisfaction and drive up retention.
“Over the last two years, we have constantly observed three repeating trends in e-commerce: every store needs to provide an Amazon-like experience; Shopify has built an incredible eco-system of merchants and developers; post-purchase communication is as crucial as a customer acquisition strategy. Rush combines all three, allowing their customers to turn shipment tracking pages into marketing and upselling opportunities,” Stanislav Sirakov, General Partner at LAUNCHub Ventures, concludes.
