Ingram Micro has acquired Palo Alto-based Shipwire, the cloud logistics and supply chain management SaaS provider. The acquisition price was not disclosed.
Shipwire has established itself as one of the leading cloud logistics platforms for retailers and e-commerce companies. It also provides shipping and developer tools. For its part, Ingram Micro is well-known for providing logistics and supply chain technology for the businesss market.
To date, Shipwire had received $15 million in venture capital. In 2011, the company received a strategic investment from eBay and Newell Rubbermaid, the company behind the Calphalon, Rubbermaid and Goody brands. Existing investor Meakem Becker Venture Capital also participated in the round.
The company has been a recognized leader in the still-forming market, but the company decided it would be better not to go it alone, said VP of Marketing ad Business Nate Gilmore in a phone interview with me today.
“Ingram is a powerhouse that we complement very well and allow us to ramp services and scale for our customers faster than we think we could have done with an IPO,” Gilmore said. “We’re coming at the market from the smaller/mid space, they know the enterprise space well.”
The investment from eBay was a big boost for Shipwire and exemplifies the value the company has for Ingram Micro. Online selling is one-click for the buyer but for the seller it is a complex undertaking that really is all about logistics. Online sellers need to know at all times the location of the product that they are selling. That’s complicated by the way products are often sold. Retailers will sell through multiple channels. To get the product sold, the retailer has to offer the channel the best rate possible.
Through the Shipwire SaaS platform, customers get on-demand access to warehouses in the U.S., Canada and Europe, allowing merchants to access inventory closer to buyers so that they can cut shipping costs and delivery times.
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Ingram Micro has lacked the SaaS capability that Shipwire provides. It offers software but not the on-demand SaaS capabilities that it will get with Shipwire.
The cloud logistics and SaaS supply chain market has a number of competitors. Amazon dominates the list but there are a host of others such as Shipstation, Trade Gecko and Netsuite, all of which offer a similar flavor of service.
