• Bulgarian euShipments.com, an e-commerce logistics, courier, and fulfillment partner to players in CEE, announced raising up to €7.5M in its first round of external financing from private equity firm BlackPeak Capital.
• BlackPeak will invest through its second fund, BlackPeak Southeast Europe Growth Equity Fund, aimed to channel investments of €5-10M in startups and SMEs across Bulgaria, Romania, Slovenia, Serbia, and Croatia.
• With the new funds, the company will accelerate its growth through strategic acquisitions and scaling of organic expansion in Central, Eastern, and Western European markets.
Throughout Europe, e-commerce is on the rise every year, increasing both in the number of e-shoppers and share in the market. The pandemic further shifted consumer preference towards online shopping. In 2020, Western markets held the biggest share of total e-commerce turnover in Europe, at 64%, while Eastern European countries grew the most.
As more and more traders from the CEE region are expanding online, while e-commerce stores continue to realize continuous growth in the number of orders and parcels, they are all looking for high-quality and affordable e-commerce logistics and cross-border shipment solutions.
“Our clients are already focused on sales in premium markets from Western Europe which means that we need to establish a solid presence there before them. We are confident that our partnership with BlackPeak Capital and their experience in executing international growth strategies, will help us get there faster,” says Lora Dimitrova, co-founder and CFO of euShipments.com.
For BlackPeak, the investment is part of their strategy to invest in niche industry leaders in high-growth industries. Since its foundation, euShipments.com has been growing organically at high double-digit rates, reaching revenues of €4M in 2021. The new capital will be partly used for strategic acquisitions, which will bring consolidation in a fragmented market:
“Generally, we are looking at targets in the CEE region, so countries like Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, and Greece, among others, but also in some of the more developed markets such as Germany, Poland, Austria. We are considering opportunities with similar business models and which could strengthen, or establish our presence on those markets. We are also looking for innovative delivery solutions which can improve our service offering,” Angel Stefanov from BlackPeak Capital tells The Recursive.
The journey of euShipments
Founded by Svetlozar Dimitrov (CEO) and Lora Dimitrova (Managing Partner) and based in Ruse, Bulgaria, euShipments.com offers a wide range of services to cater to the needs of regional e-commerce exporters. They are able to do so due to a proprietary network of 30+ local couriers and 10 fulfillment centers across all EU countries and the UK.
euShipments offers an e-commerce logistics IT platform, which is integrated with customers and supports real-time access to services including warehousing, e-fulfillment, courier, cash on delivery, 1 contact person 24/7, and a local address for each country for returning and processing undelivered and canceled shipments. Furthermore, the euShipments linehaul solution allows the shipments prepared in customers’ warehouses to arrive directly into the hands of the strongest local courier companies doing the “last mile”.
For online stores, this means having one logistics partner, one contract, and one API integration for all their shipment and delivery needs, using multiple couriers simultaneously. In all covered markets, the company provides at least two delivery options from reputable couriers.
Regarding their new financing partnership, Svetlozar Dimitrov further commented that it will help them take the company in the direction desired by the clients.
The funding comes as a natural next step in the development of the company, which recently expanded further into the Romanian market, as well as opened its own warehouse in Budapest, Hungary. They aim to support at least 50 Romanian sellers to deliver internationally and target a growth of over 20% in the volume of parcels delivered to and in Romania.
