Huboo Raises £60 Million In Quest to Become The Leading eCommerce Fulfillment Provider in Europe

Huboo, the full-stack, software-driven eCommerce fulfillment platform, today announced the close of its £60 million Series B financing led by Mubadala Capital. This new investment adds to the £14 million Series A funding raised last year and will help fuel Huboo’s expansion into continental Europe.

Founded in 2017 by Martin Bysh and Paul Dodd, the company has expanded its operations from one warehouse in Bristol to operating four fulfillment centers across the UK. It has recently opened a site in the Netherlands and plans to roll out its operations across multiple other European markets over the next 12 months. To date, Huboo has acquired over 1,000 customers – ranging from small direct-to-consumer (D2C) merchants to larger eCommerce brands – resolving critical challenges in their order fulfillment process, from warehousing and inventory management to order logistics and shipping.

Currently, many eCommerce businesses run their entire order fulfillment process in-house, largely due to the prohibitive pricing of outsourcing the process to third parties. Following a surge in eCommerce sales on the back of the COVID-19 pandemic, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) have increasingly been seeking affordable solutions that can support their fulfillment process and enables them to ship a growing number of goods in a fast and cost-effective manner.

Huboo’s end-to-end order fulfillment service provides merchants with a full-stack solution that includes an intuitive and easy-to-use merchant platform integrating multiple online sales channels and markets, an in-house developed warehouse management software, and a network of warehouses split into highly efficient micro-hubs.

The company’s merchant platform uses APIs to integrate with popular sales channels and online marketplaces such as Amazon, eBay, and Shopify, which allows D2C brands to view and track orders and manage their inventory on a single dashboard in real-time. Huboo has also developed proprietary software to manage warehouse operations and continuously optimize inventory layout.

Leveraging its technology stack, the company runs a network of physical warehouses which are split into modular micro-hubs of just a few hundred square feet each. These small hubs enable Huboo’s team to pick and pack inventory with high variability in a smarter and more efficient manner while delivering exceptional customer service. Huboo’s warehousing model is not only scalable but also capital-light, meaning a new site can be launched within a span of a few weeks.

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Huboo’s Long Term Growth Plans

Huboo’s long-term mission is to become the operating system for eCommerce businesses in Europe – a single platform allowing customers to handle inventory and fulfillment, manage their existing distribution channels, roll out new sales channels with a simple click of a button, build their own storefront and access a range of useful eCommerce related services through Huboo’s merchant app store.

The raise comes after an incredible 24 months of growth which has seen the company’s revenues grow 10x in 2020. The round was led by Mubadala Capital and joined by existing investors including Stride, Ada Ventures, Hearst Ventures, Episode 1, and Maersk Growth, and takes Huboo’s total funding raised to nearly £80 million since April 2019.

“Scores of new and existing retail businesses now see their future in eCommerce, but while anyone can set up an online store-front and start selling within hours, the infrastructure powering eCommerce is alarmingly outdated, inefficient, inflexible, and expensive.”

“This is the problem we’ve set out to address with our hub model, which brings flexibility and affordability to the incredibly complex fulfillment piece so that online retailers of all sizes – from part-timers to fast-growth D2C leaders – can benefit.”

“We’re thrilled to have Mubadala on board and are looking forward to developing our plans. This raise enables us to roll out our proposition on a wider international scale, as well as expand our service offering, continue our software development, and further invest in our growing team. By taking care of the complexity of fulfillment, our goal is to enable seamless, borderless trade for e-commerce businesses of all sizes.”

Martin Bysh, Co-founder and CEO, Huboo

“Huboo’s product solves one of the most critical pain points for eCommerce companies – while order fulfillment is a core function for these companies, it is not part of their core competency. By combining logistics with a user-friendly software platform, Huboo delivers a superior fulfillment experience and allows businesses of all sizes to continue focusing on core activities such as product development while managing growing demand from their customers.”

Fatou Bintou Sagnang, Partner, Mubadala Capital Ventures.