Saltbox, an Atlanta-based startup that offers companies co-warehousing space, raised a $10.6M Series A round to accelerate its expansion across the United States.
The round, which brings the company's total investments to $16M, was led by West Coast investor Playground Global with participation from XYZ Venture Capital and Wilshire Lane Partners.
The startup offers small businesses and e-commerce merchants space to store products in a shared warehouse. The Atlanta location opened in November 2019 and has 27,000 square feet of space, all of which is full, Saltbox CEO Tyler Scriven said.
U.S. businesses need more warehouse space because Covid-19 spurred an e-commerce boom. Atlanta's abundance of small merchants and positioning in the logistics industry make it a promising headquarters for Saltbox, Scriven said.
Part of the drive to create Saltbox came from issues Scriven saw after taking over a beauty-focused brand in Atlanta in 2016. Scriven said he was struck by the breadth of digital tools to engage with customers but the lack of infrastructure to make product fulfillment easier.
Saltbox recently opened a 66,000-square-foot warehouse near Dallas and plans to expand into Denver, Seattle and Los Angeles. Scriven said Saltbox aims to have eight locations by the end of the year.
Each location includes on-demand workers that the companies can request as well as other tools to help with logistics fulfillment. Scriven expects the 25-person team to grow to 75 during this year of expansion.
“In a sense, you can think of what we’re doing as building a platform, not particularly a technology platform, but an infrastructure platform that seeks to give that company the same degree of ability that something like Shopify would, but is fundamentally rooted in the physical world,” Scriven told North Texas Inno.
Each location is chosen based on the connectivity of the market, which allows for the small businesses using Saltbox space to expand based on the new warehouses, Scriven said.
