2021 will go down as the year Chicago minted more "unicorns" than ever before. And the latest startup to achieve the $1 billion valuation mark is logistics firm ShipBob.
ShipBob announced Tuesday that it raised $200 million in a Series E round that values the company at "well over $1 billion." The startup declined to specify the exact amount, bud added its valuation has more that doubled from its last round.
ShipBob, founded in 2014 through Y Combinator, has now raised more than $330 million to date, including a $68 million round led by SoftBank just last year.
This latest round for ShipBob was led by Bain Capital Ventures, along with backing from SoftBank, Menlo Ventures, Hyde Park Venture Partners, Hyde Park Angels and Silicon Valley Bank.
ShipBob, a startup that helps small and medium-sized e-commerce companies ship products with Amazon-like speeds, said it has more than doubled its fulfillment center network since last year, growing from 10 to 24 facilities. It opened its first facilities in the United Kingdom and Australia, adding to its existing centers in the U.S., Canada and Ireland. The startup said it expects to open ten more facilities across North America and Europe in 2021. ShipBob has around 740 employees.
ShipBob was founded by Dhruv Saxena and Divey Gulati, two childhood friends and immigrants from India who wanted to help companies automatically manage and fulfill orders from their online stores. In the startup's early days, the founders camped outside a Chicago post office to find entrepreneurs who could benefit from their platform.
"That's how we got our first set of customers who are still with us today," Gulati told Chicago Inno back in 2018.
ShipBob adds to Chicago's rapidly growing unicorn herd in 2021. This year alone Chicago has seen Amount, Enfusion, ActiveCampaign, Relativity, G2, Project44 and Cameo all hit valuations of at least $1 billion. Bringg, a logistics startup co-headquartered in Israel and Chicago, also hit unicorn status this year.
