Image credit: Sennder
Berlin-based digital road freight forwarder Sennder is a company that has shown remarkable growth over the years. Earlier in January 2021, the company raised €131.64M in its series D funding round at a valuation of approx €820M.
Sennder closes Series D round
In a recent development, the company announced that it has raised an additional $80M (approx €65.35M) through the second closing of its Series D round of funding. This new capital brings the total size of the round to $240M (approx €196.16M).
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The current round saw investment from new investor Baillie Gifford, who has also invested in high-growth technology companies, including Amazon, Tesla, and Spotify. To date, Sennder has raised more than $350M (approx €286M) and has now earned the status of a unicorn after its valuation reaches $1B (approx €817.33M).
JP Morgan Securities PLC was the sole placement agent for Sennder’s Series D funding raise.
Funds for growth and expansion
The proceeds from this round will help Sennder to accelerate its growth across Europe and further expand into new regions. The company looks to continue its strategic growth opportunities, both organically and through acquisitions.
Speaking on the development, David Nothacker, CEO & co-founder of Sennder, says, “We are delighted to have carried our momentum from 2020 into 2021, having already made one acquisition and signed several strategic partnerships. We look to expand our European footprint, bringing more carriers and shippers onto the Sennder platform while expanding our digital offering – such as SaaS.”
He further adds, “Acquisitions and strategic partnerships are part of this strategy – the additional funds give us the flexibility to capitalise on the right opportunities. Baillie Gifford has backed a wave of revolutionary tech companies; their commitment to Sennder is a vote of confidence in our team, technology, and business model.”
The company looks to expand its technology offering by continuing to deploy the initial capital raised in January 2021 to grow the team across its 8 European hubs and further develop the platform’s SaaS capabilities. The funds will also drive research and development into the automation, digitalisation, and decarbonisation of road freight.
Enabling transparency and efficiency
Sennder was founded in 2015 by David Nothacker, Nicolaus Schefenacker, and Julius Köhler. It is a logistics platform and marketplace that connects commercial shippers with smaller freight carriers. The digital trucking company digitalises the truck-loading-shipping ecosystem by providing mobile apps to drivers, fleet management tools to carrier managers, and logistics management solutions to shippers.
The company aims to make freight fit for a sustainable future. As the platform scales, Sennder can offer shippers and carriers more routes, visibility, efficiency savings while decreasing carbon emissions. Currently, the platform comprises 12,500 trucks servicing 10 German DAX 30 and 11 Euro Stoxx 50 shippers – moving more than 1 million truckloads in 2021. Sennder employs more than 840 employees across its eight international offices.
Acquired Cars&Cargo
The business is now targeting additional acquisitions of local road freight companies to enhance truck supply and increase network density on its sennOS platform. The announcement follows sennder’s recent acquisition of Dutch logistics player Cars&Cargo, and strategic partnership with Zeitfracht.
The company acquired Cars&Cargo last month to bring 240 chartered vehicles onto sennder’s digital platform. The Dutch company is a prominent logistics provider for general cargo and vehicles in France and the Benelux region.
According to Sennder, “sennder customers operating in France, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg will benefit from a significant capacity expansion and premium service quality due to Cars&Cargo’s fully chartered fleet joining sennder’s network.”
Cars&Cargo’s fleet will be embedded in sennder’s technology, gaining access to digital fleet management, route optimization and seamless onboarding. It will continue to operate under its existing brand in the near term. The Cars&Cargo’s team will join sennder, with the founder Bob Snijder continuing as Managing Director of Cars&Cargo.
Other milestones
In September 2020, the company had also acquired Uber’s European freight business in an all-stock transaction. The two companies joined forces to further expand its operations across Europe, the US, and Canada. Uber, which acquired a minority stake in the Berlin-based company as part of the deal, is currently operating under the Sennder brand.
Besides, the company also announced its merger with French counterpart Everoad in June 2020. With the merger, Sennder looks to build Europe’s largest digital road freight forwarding platform. Also, in the same year (2020), the company entered into a joint venture with the Italian postal service, Poste Italiane, making Sennder Italia the largest domestic FTL (full truckload) freight forwarder.
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