Bigblue Raises a $15M Series A to Let Independent Brands Compete with Amazon Delivery

Runa Capital led the round with LPV as the secondary lead investor and additional participation from existing investor Samaipata. Bigblue provides customers with prime-like deliveries, branded tracking emails and a dedicated returns portal to enable a superior experience.

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^{E-commerce giants like Amazon and Zalando have invested billions in software and infrastructure to provide the best experience for their customers. Still, these solutions are only optimised for their businesses. To sell effectively, e-commerce brands search for solutions tailored specifically to their needs — Bigblue offers an all-in-one platform optimised for each independent brand and helps companies selling online deliver the best and most unique customer experience.}

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Bigblue provides shipping automation, transport optimisation, branded post-purchase communications, and more. The company operates an intelligent European warehouse and carrier network that uses AI to pick the best shipping method for each shipment and ensure fast and green fulfilment.

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With Bigblue, brands can add a personalized insert to their packages, customize their packaging, or tell their story in shipping notifications. 

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Bigblue counts more than 300 client brands, and in 2022 will ship 4 million parcels from 3 different countries. Bigblue's all-inclusive pricing and native integrations with Shopify and other leading e-commerce platforms make it easy for sellers to quickly set up their account, send inventory, and start selling with fast, branded fulfilment in as little as one week.

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Powering independent brands in France since 2018, Bigblue does not simply offer a fulfilment solution that matches Amazon standards – we aim to make it easy for brands to grow online. With this new round, we will support scaling service offerings for Bigblue's growing base of online merchants, fuel hiring efforts, and continue to position the company as the leader in the D2C fulfilment space. - Tim Dumain, co-founder at Bigblue.

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With its new program Fast Tags, Bigblue helps brands to reduce their marketing costs: it automatically pushes eligible buyers a 98% accurate 1-day delivery time along their purchase journey.

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_{Fast Tags' early adopters have seen a significant increase of 20-40% in conversion, with substantial savings in acquisition costs.}

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Since its inception, Bigblue has been committed to making logistics greener and helping brands move towards sustainability.

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This becomes relevant since 85% of people globally prefer to buy from sustainable brands, and logistics has a key role to play in improving the environmental impact of e-commerce. Bigblue works hand-in-hand with its merchants to match their sustainability expectations: its proprietary technology optimises transport routes and truck filling, reducing carbon emissions by 25%.

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In addition, parcels are delivered via cargo bikes and electric vehicles in major cities, all packaging is plastic-free and recyclable, and the company's warehouses are Ecocert certified.

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Runa Capital sees Bigblue as a crucial part of the online merchants' tech stack and believes that the e-commerce market will continue to grow at an impressive pace in the future. We're confident the team has everything to become the European leader in e-commerce fulfilment. We appreciate the platform's potential, and are happy to support the team on its way to success. - Dmitry Chikhachev, General Partner at Runa Capital.

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With the 15 million funding, Bigblue plans to hire 100 new people over the next 12 months in sales, marketing and operations and triple its engineering staff. The start-up opened its first international office in Madrid in January and will expand to the rest of Europe over the next year.

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This European expansion comes with ambitious goals: the team plans to expand low-carbon 1-day delivery to all of Western Europe, help national brands to become European by supporting them in their internationalization, continue to improve the post-shopping experience and extend its Fast Tag Program to help more brands get rid of overwhelming acquisition costs.

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About Bigblue

Bigblue is an order fulfilment platform that enables e-commerce merchants to offer their customers the ultimate delivery experience, thereby helping merchants increase sales and maximize return on ad spend. The Paris-based company operates an intelligent European warehouse and carrier network that uses AI to pick the best shipping method for each shipment and ensure fast and green fulfillment. All Bigblue services are included in a single cost so sellers know exactly what they will pay on day one. The company has native integrations with Shopify and other leading e-commerce platforms, allowing sellers to create an account in minutes, send inventory into the Bigblue network, and start selling with fast, branded fulfillment in as little as one week. Bigblue already has 300 client brands.

For more information, visit https://bigblue.co/.

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About Runa Capital

Runa Capital was launched in 2010 by the founders of Acronis, Parallels, and Acumatica, and has since become a leading global VC firm. Runa Capital is investing from Fund III, which focuses on early-stage investments in deep tech, including quantum technologies and cloud infrastructure, and SaaS, including vertical solutions for the healthcare, finance, and education industries. Runa Capital has invested in more than 80 companies across Europe and North America, including Mambu, Smava, Nginx, MariaDB, Brainly, Acumatica, and others.

For more information, visit www.runacap.com.

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About La Poste Ventures

La Poste Ventures is the Corporate Venture Capital of La Poste Group, endowed with 50 million euros, based in Paris and operated by XAnge. La Poste Ventures is involved in Seed and Series A fundraising, investing 300,000 to 3 million euros. His investment thesis focuses on La Poste's strategic sectors, particularly SaaS, transport and logistics, health, ecological transition and the circular economy.

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XAnge is an early-stage investment fund based in Paris and Munich with 600 million euros under management. Its investment team supports European entrepreneurs who aim to change everyday life through technology by investing amounts of 500,000 to 10 million euros from the start-up phase. With an investment thesis centred on bringing technologies to as many people as possible, XAnge invests in the deeptech, healthcare, fintech, SaaS and e-commerce sectors. XAnge has, for example, supported Lydia (Finance), Welcome to the Jungle (Human Resources), Believe (Music), MrSpex (eCommerce) and Ledger (cryptocurrencies). XAnge operates the La Poste Ventures fund alongside La Poste experts.