INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
porch.But a fresh startup has found unprecedented growth by letting you monitor all your e-commerce orders in one app thanks to a Gmail
Meet Route, emerging from stealth today to become the Find My Friends for packages
By helping merchants handle post-purchase satisfaction while charging consumers for insurance, this year Route has grown to $8.85 million
in revenue run rate and from 5 to 100 employees.Now Route is announcing it has raised $12 million in total through a quiet $500,00 January
pre-seed round from Peak Venture Capital and a new seed round with the rest from Album VC and strategic partner in direct-to-consumer
The cash will help Route keep up with demand and add new features to its app
as your pie goes in the oven, hits the road and reaches your door
Talking to a furniture shop owner, he heard about their troubles of shipping vintage trunks
Route iOS app for visually tracking orders officially launches today
Purchases from partnered merchants instantly show up in the app and its website via API, but all your other buys from Amazon etc
can be automatically ingested by authorizing the Route Bot Gmail extension that scans for shipping updates
Route lays out all the orders on a map with immediate access to their latest status changes, like when shipping info is received, an item
of mind is launching today too
Customers get the option to add it from partnered merchants, file claims for lost / damaged / stolen packages in one tap and get
and 600 carriers and has overseen shipments to 1.3 million customers in 187 countries
crowd of competitors in the market
Parcel offers a barcode scanner
ParcelTrack lets you forward it emails of purchases to monitor, and a $2.99 premium version offers live locations of your packages plus
tracking automatically, though it will lack manual tracking number input for a few more weeks
It has managed a 90% customer satisfaction score
Still, the startup could be vulnerable to a major player in e-commerce like Amazon or Shopify barging into the space
There are also platform risks, such as if Gmail blocked its scanning for tracking numbers, though Google is currently partnered with Route
megatrend of purchase behavior shifting online means the once occasional activity of receiving a package has become a constant chore in need
Plenty of merchants are meanwhile looking to offload the complexity of keeping impatient buyers happy
If Route conquers its first market, it could move into adjacent spaces, ranging from merchant services like freight forwarding and financing
packages against big dents.
