Cambridge, SoftBank Back Parcel Perform In $20M Series A

While Dana von der Heide and Arne Jeroschewski were working to improve e-commerce logistics within Asia Pacific at DHL, the pair realized advancing the experience for retailers could not be done with just one carrier. 

This inspired them to step away from DHL and co-found Parcel Perform, a Singapore-based e-commerce logistics software-as-a-service company that leverages over 700 carriers worldwide to improve the consumer experience of global parcel deliveries.

"We quickly realized that if you want to change the industry, you cannot do it from within and you have to take your own path," said von der Heide in an interview with FreightWaves.

"We really wanted to make sure that everyone gets a good delivery experience. Carriers don't have a stake in these merchants so they really don't care [about their overall logistics experience]. We want to give the power back to the merchants and make sure everyone gets more transparency."

On Wednesday, the company announced it has secured a $20 million Series A investment led by Cambridge Capital with participation from SoftBank Ventures Asia and existing investors Wavemaker Partners and Investible after seeing fivefold revenue growth and reaching profitability since the arrival of the pandemic.

Its new investment and strategic partnerships with Cambridge and Softbank will enable Parcel Perform to continue building out its technology solutions, open its regional headquarters in North America and add 150 employees across the globe by the end of this year.

"This is a logistics tech company built by people that really know logistics," Benjamin Gordon, founder and managing partner of Cambridge Capital, told FreightWaves.

"Parcel Perform is becoming the market leader in supply chain visibility, tracking shipments in Asia, Europe and [now] the U.S. They have won blue-chip clients like Shopify in North America, even before coming here. We are investing to help them scale in the U.S., similar to what we did with Bringg five years ago and now they are a unicorn."

Funding details: Parcel Perform

Funding amount	$20 million
Funding round	Series A
Lead investor	Cambridge Capital
Secondary investors	SoftBank Ventures Asia, Wavemaker Partners and Investible
Business goals for the round	Improve technology offerings, add regional headquarters in North America and add 150 employees by year end.
Total funding	$21.45 million

Parcel Perform's technology consolidates last-mile data from its large pool of carriers to enable these merchants to determine the type of customer experience they want to provide. With carrier relationships all over the world and proprietary prediction engines, the company can provide end consumers with accurate ETAs, as well as real-time tracking in their native languages.

Parcel Perform's white-label platform integrates reporting, payment services and its customer service toolkit into one location, leading to an increase in customer lifetime value of up to 40%, according to the company.

"Over more than two years of working with Parcel Perform, their solution has become our global track-and-trace solution," said Davide Costella, global delivery services manager at Nespresso.

"With the help of their streamlined data in 30-plus languages and sophisticated product suite, we are creating excellent post-purchase experiences but also getting real insights into actual carrier service level compliance which helps us drive continuous improvement and better rates. Tracking assistance is amongst the top reasons customers call our customer relationship center and in some markets, we have seen a 45% decrease in these calls. In addition, with our session cam analytics, we have observed that customers revisit the track-and-trace webpage four to six times during the delivery time window, proving it is indeed an essential feature to boost customer experience."

While the company's merchant partners find strong value in its technology platform, Parcel Perform takes analytics to the next level. On its website, Parcel Monitor, the company offers the global community insight into e-commerce logistics by leveraging its 100 million daily tracking updates with data from analytics partners including Statista, RetailX and Rakuten Insight.

"Parcel Perform did not only launch an enterprise-ready and scalable, modular platform but also built a global community for e-commerce professionals with Parcel Monitor," said Cindy Jin, partner at SoftBank Ventures Asia. "We are excited to partner with them and help them drive their next chapter of innovation in e-commerce logistics."

Investors also agreed that the co-founders' ability to maintain diversity standards while scaling a profitable organization was impressive. 

"In a male-dominated industry, a female co-founder, who has built a team that is 45% female, makes a big impact," said Gordon.

"Their passion for the industry, hyperglobal approach and diverse team [will] enable them to provide features that change the experience for all stakeholders in last-mile delivery," said Jin.

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