Flexport Raising $260M From Shopify — Report

Logistics giant Flexport is raising $260 million from partner and e-commerce titan Shopify after burning through hundreds of millions of dollars last year, per a report in The Information.

The huge fundraising event is just the latest headline for a San Francisco-based startup that hit a peak valuation of $8 billion almost exactly two years ago after raising a massive $935 million round.

Flexport and Shopify are no strangers to making deals with each other. Last May, Flexport announced the acquisition of the assets of Shopify Logistics business for a 13% equity interest in the private company.

Shopify also gave Flexport a $40 million cash infusion as part of the deal, per The Information report.

Flurry of Flexport news

Of course, that was far from the only reason Flexport was in the news last year. 

In September, the big news hit that Flexport’s then-CEO Dave Clark was abruptly leaving the company after just a year and founder Ryan Petersen was coming back to take the reins as the company struggled with shipping volume declines after the pandemic boom.

Then in November, it was reported Flexport was acquiring the assets of shuttered Jeff Bezos-backed digital freight startup network Convoy. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it was reported a memo from Petersen said “the purchase price relative to value is modest.”

In April 2022, Convoy was valued at $3.8 billion after its Series E round.

Early last year it also was reported Flexport also announced it would cut 20% of its staff. Then after Petersen returned the company it said it again planned to lay off 20% of its workforce.

Flexport had raised nearly $2.4 billion in equity and debt before the new Shopify round. Some of its noteworthy investors include Andreessen Horowitz, MSD Partners and the SoftBank Vision Fund.

Illustration: Li-Anne Dias