When Stord co-founders Sean Henry and Jacob Boudreau pivoted into the warehouse logistics space in 2017, they knew fixing supply chain problems for brands of all sizes was an important problem.
What they didn’t know was that a global pandemic would show the world just how important fixing the problem would be.
From its Midtown Atlanta headquarters, Stord has built a ‘Cloud Supply Chain’ and distribution network that helps brands gain visibility into their inventory through their software.
“2020 was a critical year for supply chains. With the disruption caused by the pandemic and the accompanying rise in e-commerce volumes, brands have been searching for more ways to reach their customers cost-effectively, quickly, and with agility,” Henry told Hypepotamus.
This week, the team announced a $31 million Series B round, led by Founders Fund. Chattanooga-based Dynamo, Kleiner Perkins, Susa Ventures, Good Friends Fund, and B-Capital offered additional participation in the round.
This brings the startup’s total funding to just over $46 million to date, according to Crunchbase.
The funding news is just the latest headline in what has been a busy year for Stord. Henry said the team has spent the year building up Stord’s software, incorporating freight and last-mile logistics capabilities, as well as adding e-commerce fulfillment abilities. Over the summer, Stord acquired Missouri-based Cove Logistics.
The team has grown from 40 to 125 employees in the last year, with shipment volume increasing an impressive 15,000%.
Many public companies and startups in the supply chain space call Atlanta home, giving it the moniker ‘Supply Chain City.’ Stord’s team is hoping to continue to build that momentum.
“While behemoths like Amazon have spent decades building their logistics network and technology in-house, the average brand is stuck trying to compete with a prime-like experience by piecing together a mix of expensive fulfillment centers, third-party logistics providers with rigid contracts, and complex enterprise software,” said Henry in a statement on Stord’s blog. “At Stord, our mission is to provide our best-in-class logistics network and software to shippers so they can build fast, scalable, technology-driven supply chains at a fraction of the cost (and even less time) it would take for them to build themselves.”
Stord got its start in Chattanooga’s Dynamo Ventures’ accelerator program. For the Dynamo team, which also participated in this recent round, Stord’s continued growth shows the team’s potential.
“We were the first check investor in Stord and identified them as having a meaningfully differentiated approach to solving the problems shippers face when addressing their warehouse needs. Stord has been very intentional in building its software, service, and network with a focus on flexibility, service, and technology-first solution set. In particular, we’re excited about Stord’s appetite to bite off the massive software opportunity early on, on top of the logistics-as-a-service,” Dynamo’s Santosh Sankar told Hypepotamus.
And good news for Atlantans: Stord has about 50 positions they are looking to fill, primarily in the city.
