Online-to-offline platform Sendoso raises $40M after growing 330% in 2019

Email is garbage and we’re all buried in the stuff. Actually getting someone’s attention given the constraints that digital missives present is difficult. How do you snag someone’s eye when the Internet Age’s key communication channel is a mess?

One option is to skip the inbox altogether, and send something physical instead. That’s where a startup called Sendoso comes in. The company, flush today with $40 million in new capital from a Series B led by Oak HC/FT Partners (the HC/FT bit stands for healthcare and fintech), is accelerating its build-out of what it calls a “sending platform” to help people get noticed by others when they deem it necessary.

TechCrunch covered the company’s Series A in early 2019, when it raised $10.7 million. Sendoso has now raised north of $54 million during its life as a private company.

In an interview with TechCrunch, Sendoso CEO Kris Rudeegraap said that his company raised $40 million in a single round after having raised less than $15 million previously because it “nailed product-market fit.” Because of this, the Series B was “a very competitive round,” according to Rudeegraap, who added that the funding event was “oversubscribed in terms of interest.”

The startup also said it grew total revenue by 330% in 2019, compared to its 2018 result.

All that growth is impressive, but what does Sendoso do, exactly? It’s a technology company with a large real-world footprint, which is why it’s a bit hard to describe. In practical terms, the company’s software helps customers “incorporate digital and physical sending strategies” to better attract attention, according to Rudeegraap.

As TechCrunch detailed during the company’s Series A, the CEO previously worked in sales, where he began to branch out his communications strategy into sending corporate swag, handwritten notes and the like to prospective clients. The effort proved successful, he told TechCrunch, but was time-consuming.

Sendoso is the productized version of Rudeegraap’s former sales methods. It calls its service a “sending platform,” noting on its website that it can send pretty much anything through its systems, including perishables. The company framed its market proposition in a release this morning as a way to “incorporate digital and physical sending strategies into their go-to-market programs.”

The company builds software connecting customers to its own services, its services to customer CRM tooling and both to its warehouses to assist with the mailing of personalized items to teams and prospective clients.

It’s not hard to wonder if the company might branch out a bit in time — after all, it is building relationships with companies of all sorts and it has shipping experience and a growing warehouse footprint. What else might it send in time?

Today, however, Sendoso appears focused on companies sending other companies gifts and items, often personalized. Sales is a big world. Powering sales is a big market. Let’s see if Sendoso can put up three-figure revenue growth again in 2020.

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J Online-to-offline platform Sendoso raises $40M after growing 330% in 2019 https://ift.tt/2u6I1Bf