Huboo sets sights on Europe after £60m Series B funding boost

FAST-GROWING Bristol firm Huboo has raised £60million in investment to help it expand its e-commerce fulfillment services into Europe.

The business, whose technology enables online retailers to quickly access and complete end-to-end fulfilment operations, launched in 2017 with two secure storage rooms at a Safestore in Bath.

Since then, the company has grown from two employees, 60 customers and £20,000 in monthly recurring revenue (MRR) to more than 250 employees, more than 1,000 customers and £1.2m MRR in just four years.

After opening four warehouses in and around the Bristol area, including at South West logistics hub Avonmouth, where it recently announced it would create 130 jobs, Huboo is now looking to scale its ‘micro-hub’ model through Europe.

In June the firm opened its first site outside the UK in Eindhoven in The Netherlands. In September it announced it was set to open a 4,200 sq mt logistics centre in the Spanish capital Madrid, with plans to roll out its services across multiple European markets over the next year.

Huboo has now announced the close of a £60m Series B funding round, led by Mubadala Capital, the financial investment arm of an Emirati state-owned sovereign wealth fund.

Existing investors including Stride, Ada Ventures, Hearst Ventures, Episode 1 and Maersk Growth also participated in the round.

The new investment adds to £14m Huboo raised in a Series A round last year, taking its funding total since April 2019 to nearly £80m. Huboo said the funds would fuel its expansion into continental Europe.

Martin Bysh, co-founder and chief executive of Huboo, said: “We’re thrilled to have Mubadala on-board and are looking forward to developing our plans.

“This raise enables us to roll out our proposition on a wider international scale, as well as expand our service offering, continue our software development and further invest in our growing team.

“By taking care of the complexity of fulfilment, our goal is to enable seamless, borderless trade for e-commerce businesses of all sizes.”

Fatou Bintou Sagnang, partner at Mubadala Capital Ventures, said: “Huboo’s product solves one of the most critical pain points for e-commerce companies – while order fulfilment is a core function for these companies, it is not part of their core competency.

“By combining logistics with a user-friendly software platform, Huboo delivers a superior fulfilment experience and allows businesses of all sizes to continue focusing on core activities such as product development, while managing growing demand from their customers.”

Venture fund Episode1, which led Huboo’s first funding round in April 2019, said it had been “blown away” by Huboo’s rapid growth.

Investment firm Ada Ventures, which has an office in Bristol, said Huboo was a “shining light of the UK’s tech sector and it was “particularly delighted for a Bristol-based company to be succeeding this way”.

This raise enables us to roll out our proposition on a wider international scale Martin Bysh