Innoship Startup Raises 550,000 EUR as Seed Investment from GapMinder Venture Partners

The funding will support the company’s initial growth spurt to become the leading orchestrator of multiple last-mile delivery options for independent e-commerce businesses in Romania and in CEE.

Bucharest – [August 5, 2020] – Innoship startup, the developer of SaaS (software as a service) solution of the same name, enabling ecommerce businesses to integrate and orchestrate multiple last-mile delivery options,  announces today, August 5, 2020, that it secured a Seed investment from GapMinder VC. The investment of 550,000 EUR comes at a mere six months from the commercial launch of the solution based on its impressive adoption rate.

The company implemented the Innoship solution for its first customers at the beginning of 2020 and currently manages approximately 20,000 daily orders. The Innoship solution can be integrated with all large ecommerce platforms, warehouse management systems, ERP (enterprise resource planning), fulfillment and marketplace active in Romania and regionally. Its clients’ portfolio includes the most well-known names in the local ecommerce and distribution ecosystem such as Miniprix, Kalapod, OLX, Depanero, Network One Distribution, Dentstore, Oralix, Topline, xpertbeauty.ro, Arco Expert, Algernon, green-future.ro, mezoni.ro, Generalmotor, and many others.

This Seed Investment round received from GapMinder VC will stimulate the accelerated growth of Innoship adoption among retailers active on the Romanian market and also its first steps towards internationalization while speeding up the development of new functionalities for its platform.

Innoship optimizes the interactions between retailers and carriers, streamlining the costs of courier services by up to 25% and increasing delivery performance by up to 15% through a dynamic allocation of the orders according to the criteria selected by the retailer in the platform. Innoship technology increases the quality of the shipping service experience, providing easy access to new fast delivery options while substantially reducing costs.

The advanced machine-learning algorithms of the solution analyze the performance of different delivery options across the relevant geographic area and the retailer’s delivery points to allocate delivery orders based on customized criteria and the approach set by each retailer. This way, Innoship facilitates the access of retailer of all sizes to an advanced delivery management solution, which until now was only available for large ecommerce platforms.

Daniel Nicolae, CEO and Co-Founder of Innoship, stated: “Consumer demand for multiple delivery options and better quality of shipping services poses huge challenges for retailers and ecommerce companies to manage the last-mile delivery efficiently. We created the Innoship platform as an advanced aggregator and orchestrator of multiple last-mile delivery options to help ecommerce businesses gain consumer confidence, increase conversions, and drive repeat buying by building loyalty. Most importantly, Innoship is fast and easy to adopt by retailers and ecommerce companies, being, one the one hand, integrated with all delivery companies and, on the other hand, with the most important ecommerce platforms, ERP, WMS, already used in existing processes.”

Cosmin Ochișor, Partener la GapMinder Venture Partners, a 45 million USD size fund, said: ”By using Innoship, online retailers can benefit of a machine-learning powered solution which fits their current workflow, a solution that is very easy to integrate and creates immediate benefits by both boosting the customer satisfaction and optimizing the shipping related costs. The 550,000 EUR Seed Round for Innoship is a new step in implementing our investment strategy focusing on companies that immediately and pragmatically use technology to optimize existing business models.”

The Innoship startup was founded in 2019 by a team of seniors in the retail, supply chain, courier and IT sectors. The founding partners – Daniel Nicolae, Andrei Paul, Dan Ungureanu and Robert Tănase – have a long experience in companies such as Orange, Penny and Urgent Cargus. Cătălin Grigorescu, one of the most well-known lawyers specialized in technology in the country and in the region, joined the team in 2020, as an investor and strategy and business advisor.

Innoship was assisted in this financing round by the law firm bpv GRIGORESCU STEFANICA, which has been consistently ranked over the past five years in tier #1 of Romanian law firms with advisory and transactional practices in the sector of technology and new industries.

-ENDS-

About Innoship

Innoship is a company that combines technology (in a form that is easy to understand and easy to use) and know-how in the fields of the courier, supply chain, and retail. The Innoship platform is an aggregator of multiple fast delivery options for retail and ecommerce companies that democratizes retailers of all sizes access to advanced technology through which they can efficiently manage their courier contracts by offering to their customers multiple delivery options and shipping services for better quality at a minimal cost. For more information, please visit: https://www.innoship.io/

About GapMinder Venture Partners BV

GapMinder is a 45 Million USD venture capital fund investing in high technology companies born in Romania and Central Europe and expanding at an international level, at Seed or Series A stages. GapMinder’s partners have a hands-on approach as investors, enhancing companies’ growth via strategic advisory and direct involvement in operational streamlining, corporate governance and financial discipline. GapMinder’s portfolio includes companies such as FintechOS, TypingDNA, SmartDreamers, Deepstash, Frisbo or Planable.