Lob, the fast growing 'bits to atoms' API provider out of Y Combinator, announced it has secured $7 million in Series A financing. The round was led by Polaris Partners with First Round Capital, Floodgate, and other individual investors participating. The funding round follows Lob's $2.4 million seed round in November 2013.
Lob's suite of APIs eliminates the complexity of printing and mailing for its customers by allowing developers to send physical mail as easily as they send email. By simply sending an address along with the content to be printed, Lob turns that data into physical products and mails materials anywhere in the world within days. With a full product suite that includes letters, postcards, checks, posters, photos and other print products, Lob's infrastructure is cost effective, highly flexible, and easily scalable.
Lob was co-founded by Leore Avidar and Harry Zhang, leveraging their expertise in building and selling APIs while previously at Amazon Web Services and Microsoft respectively. Since launching in 2013, Lob has experienced rapid growth with over 3500+ customers that include Intuit, Porch, and Ubiquiti Networks. Avidar attributes the growth to the team's deep understanding of APIs and the ease of use of the API suite.
'Lob is squarely focused on building the infrastructure that exists for email for physical mail,' said Avidar. 'Our API allows customers to focus on their core offerings and not have to deal with traditional mail houses and the outdated problems that exist with working with them. Companies that use our product can send mail as effortlessly as sending an email. We had a great deal of interest from a broad base of potential investors and are very excited about working with this syndicate led by Polaris, given the value these firms bring to the table.'
With considerable momentum out of the gate, Lob joins the rapidly growing market of user-friendly, efficient API providers. 'Lob's API enables another key communication channel for companies by allowing them to control print and mail in ways that were previously impossible. By leveraging the power of Lob's API, companies can now send triggered mailers based on user behavior or actions,' said Zhang. 'The API-ization of everything has been a long time coming and Lob is the glue between how businesses communicate with each other and their customers across electronic and physical mediums.'
Polaris Partner Pat Kinsel, who will take a seat on Lob's Board of Directors, sees the promise in growing both the core API as well as future applications.
'Leore and Harry are building the web's print API layer. They bring to the table both the market vision and technical prowess to embrace this current opportunity while at the same time being able to see the places the company could go,' said Kinsel. 'Today's applications can spread globally and scale wildly in short order. To leverage print, developers need a highly scalable solution that works everywhere. By offering a developer friendly, pay-as-you-go service, Lob has helped developers realize print is an important and easily achievable part of their application or service.'
About Lob
Lob, a leading cloud-based API platform, offers an innovative and powerful suite of print and mail APIs for developers and businesses. Built with developers in mind, Lob provides a complete array of print products, base infrastructure, and tools that allow businesses to build scalable and powerful applications. Lob eliminates traditional challenges associated with physical communication channels and enables companies to create flexible solutions around print and mail. Founded in 2013, Lob is based in San Francisco and backed by Polaris Partners, First Round Capital, Floodgate, Y Combinator and several notable individual investors such as Sam Altman, Kevin Hale, Alexis Ohanian, Garry Tan, Paul Buchheit, Joshua Schachter and Dalton Caldwell. For more information, visit http://www.lob.com.