ShipBob announced today that it has closed $4 million in a Series A round of funding to empower more businesses around the world with better, easier, more affordable logistics and shipping. This round, led by Hyde Park Venture Partners (HPVP), will fuel ShipBob's growth as the company increases its geographic footprint, expands its team, and further develops the product.

ShipBob was founded to optimize logistics for e-commerce companies to help them achieve the scale, speed, reach and efficiency of Amazon. The company participated in Y Combinator in 2014 and has since experienced double-digit growth month-over-month. It is operationally profitable in Chicago and New York, where it is currently active. This funding is a testament to the company's impressive traction and will support ShipBob as the company scales and continues to transform the entire fulfillment lifecycle for SMBs. ShipBob plans to launch another city later this summer.

ShipBob's free online platform manages the entire fulfillment process from end to end, combining order management, inventory management, customer communication, and seamless shipping in one simple web dashboard. It integrates with the most popular online e-commerce platforms, including eBay, Shopify, Amazon, and Magento. When a merchant makes a sale, all they have to do is schedule a pickup and ShipBob takes care of the rest.

ShipBob professionally packs items and optimizes savings for businesses by comparing USPS, UPS, FedEx & DHL for the lowest shipping rate. It will ship anywhere in the world and fill out all the customers' paperwork, so merchants don't have to worry about a thing. The company also offers warehousing, so customers can store inventory at the company's warehouse and ShipBob will package and ship out orders as they are placed.

'My cofounder and I were running an e-commerce store ourselves and every time we got an order, we had to go to the post office and stand in line to mail our items,' said ShipBob cofounder Dhruv Saxena. 'We realized shipping was broken for SMBs and there were no good solutions out there. That's when we decided to start ShipBob. We've grown rapidly and this round of funding will enable us to scale up to meet demand, to take the pain out of shipping for more small businesses and help them scale as they grow.'

Logistics for small businesses are complicated and painful. E-commerce platforms have simplified the process of selling online, but the fulfillment process remains antiquated. Most SMBs juggle multiple products and services for various steps of the fulfillment process and none of these systems talk to each other, which leads to inefficiencies and mistakes. Once they reach a certain volume, they also have to hire their own staff for packaging and shipping, which is also expensive. As a result, small businesses can spend 25 percent of revenue on fulfillment alone.

ShipBob solves these problems with a single technology platform that integrates all the products and services SMBs need. ShipBob serves as their outsourced logistics arm, which is cheaper and allows small businesses to grow without worrying about their logistics infrastructure. Its software-first approach stands out in a stagnant market where incumbents take months to onboard customers. With ShipBob, merchants do not have to pay to use the platform, only for the services they use -- there are no minimums and no contracts.

'In an e-commerce world where shipping speed and cost efficiency matter, ShipBob has an innovative approach to helping small and medium e-commerce companies provide efficient and cost-effective logistics,' said Ira Weiss, from Hyde Park Venture Partners (HPVP). 'Merchants need better tools to take the pain out of fulfillment and ShipBob's platform makes the entire process simple and straightforward. The opportunity is huge and we are excited to see ShipBob realize its global vision.'

In addition to HPVP, other investors include Hyde Park Angels, FJ Labs, Recruit Strategic Partners, FundersClub, Startcaps Ventures, NFQ Capital, Network Ventures, Bluestein and Associates, Service Provider Capital, Russell Long, SV Angel and Y Combinator, which ShipBob went through in 2014.

About ShipBob
ShipBob's goal is to make shipping effortless and efficient, businesses can skip standing in line at the post office and focus on what really matters in their business. Its online platform combines order management, inventory management, customer communication, as well as optimized shipping for e-commerce companies. The technology platform integrates into online eÂ-commerce platforms such as eBay, Shopify, Amazon, Magento. Shipbob provides this technology platform for free so that any business can sign up and start using Shipbob's online platform within minutes. ShipBob offers value-added premium services built on top of its platform, allowing it to capture some of the savings provided to its clients.

About Hyde Park Venture Partners
Hyde Park Venture Partners (HPVP) is an early stage venture fund focused on high-growth software startups across the Midwest. With offices in Chicago and Indianapolis and a network of deal sources and advisors throughout the Midwest, the firm invests in technology startups raising their first or second institutional round of capital. Example investments include Farmlogs, FourKites, G2Crowd, and Geofeeedia. Follow HPVP @hydeparkvp.