Sendoso, another startup in the rapidly growing gifting-as-a-service space, recently landed $100 million in Series C funding.
That brings the company’s funding total to $152 million, surpassing the totals of Snappy and Alyce, two other major gifting-as-a-service (also known as “end to end” or “one to one” gifting) startups that have attracted major attention from venture capital firms over the last year or so.
Snappy has raised $100 million over three rounds of funding, while Alyce has raised $48 million. Sendoso’s $100 million Series C haul is also the largest single round of funding any of these companies has received, beating the $70 million Snappy picked up in May.
The news is the continuation of a trend we’ve been watching closely for its disruption potential in the promo industry. The gifting-as-a-service model has received significant buzz lately, with major publications such as the Wall Street Journal calling it a “personalized alternative to homogenous corporate swag.”
While these companies don’t appear to be a direct threat to promo—as software platforms, many even offer branded merchandise integration and fulfillment capabilities that could make them potential partners—their tech-powered approach to corporate gifting has certainly raised eyebrows within the industry. (For in-depth coverage on gifting-as-a-service and promo, read our July longform or listen to this episode of the PM Podcast.)
We are thrilled to announce our $100M #SeriesC funding round led by @SoftBank_Group Vision Fund 2, enabling us to expand our hiring, product offerings, and new European headquarters in Ireland! 🎉🇮🇪#Sendoso #FundingAnnouncement #IDAIreland
Read here: https://t.co/nWyUlVwyeB pic.twitter.com/Yrlg2Bsysp
— Sendoso (@sendosohq) September 14, 2021
Sendoso now has more than 20,000 users and 800 business customers, including Comcast, Nasdaq and eBay. According to TechCrunch, the platform offers 30,000 items ranging from branded merchandise to retail gifts and gift cards, and provides logistics and fulfillment services similar to those offered by other gifting-as-a-service startups.
It also offers many of the same tech-integration capabilities as its competitors. Via TechCrunch:
The startup’s platform integrates with a company’s existing marketing, sales and management software—Salesforce, HubSpot, SalesLoft among them—and then lets users use this to organize and order gifts through these channels, for example as part of larger sales, marketing or HR strategies. The gifts are wide-ranging, covering corporate swag, other physical presents, gift cards and more, and there are also integrations you can include to share gifting across teams of salespeople, to analyze the campaigns and more.
Sendoso’s latest round of funding is also noteworthy in that it was led by SoftBank, whose Vision Fund 2 represents the world’s largest tech-focused venture capital fund. At $108 billion in total capital, the fund includes investors such as Apple and Microsoft.
“We believe Sendoso offers the most comprehensive end-to-end gifting platform in the market,” said Priya Saiprasad, a partner at SoftBank Investment Advisers, according to TechCrunch. “Their platform includes a global marketplace of curated vendors, seamless integration with existing tools, global logistics and deep analytics. As a result, Sendoso serves as the backbone to enterprises’ engagement programs with prospective customers, existing customers, employees and other key stakeholders. We’re excited to lead this Series C round to help Sendoso accelerate its vision.”
In a post on the company’s website, CEO Kris Rudeegraap said Sendoso will use the funds to expand its global warehouse and logistics capabilities, increase the size of its product marketplace and add “top talent” as it scales. The company also will open a European headquarters based in Ireland.
