Next-day delivery startup Veho has raised $170 million in an early-stage funding round that valued the San Francisco-based firm at $1.5 billion, the company announced in press release Tuesday (Feb. 15).
The round was led by Tiger Global, with participation from SoftBank Vision Fund 2. The company says it will use the financing to expand in the U.S., automate its warehouse and increase its headcount to 2,000 — quadrupling its staffing — by the end of this year.
“The parcel delivery industry is straining under enormous demand and a permanent shift toward residential delivery. Veho’s highly flexible and consumer-centric delivery network is an ideal solution,” said Griffin Schroeder, partner, Tiger Global.
The funding comes just weeks after Veho raised $125 million in a Series A round that valued the company at $1 billion.
Read more: Next-Day Delivery Startup Veho Raises $125M at $1B Valuation
“We’re providing eCommerce brands a fast, tech-forward and customer-centric delivery option that ensures brand perception makes it past the purchase, all the way through to the customer door,” Veho CEO and Co-founder Itamar Zur said last year after the Series A.
Zur co-founded the company in 2016 as a project at Harvard Business School after dealing with a host of issues when receiving packages. Since then, Veho has thrived as the pandemic has placed strains on the supply chain and more demand for eCommerce.
“We avoid many of the traditional pitfalls of logistics and shipping through advanced proprietary technology, a culture that places the customer experience at the center of everything we do and our partnership with professional and qualified crowdsourced drivers,” he said. “We’re in 14 U.S. cities today and expect to be serving brand partners and consumers in every major market by the end of 2022, including introducing and scaling our doorstep returns program.”
The funding round was also backed by Bling Capital, Construct Capital, Industry Ventures, Origin Ventures and General Catalyst, which had led the Series A.
“The role of last-mile logistics in eCommerce is more important than ever, and Veho is bringing much-needed innovation to a space that has for years struggled to keep up with the dramatic increase in demand while focusing on a superior consumer experience,” Kyle Doherty, managing director at General Catalyst, said last year.