Pandion, an e-commerce delivery startup led by Amazon Air founder, lands $41.5M

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Pandion, a Seattle startup that helps online retailers deliver orders to customers, raised a $41.5 million Series B round.

Founded in 2020 by former Amazon and Walmart executive Scott Ruffin, Pandion operates a residential parcel delivery system that covers 80% of U.S. homes and includes five sortation centers. It picks up packages at fulfillment centers from customers such as Saks Fifth Avenue, then uses a network of 500,000 “last mile” delivery drivers to get products to their final destination.

Ruffin is the founder and former leader of Amazon Air, the tech giant’s sprawling cargo air business. He was also executive vice president and chief strategy officer at J.W. Logistics and later was a vice president and head of e-commerce transportation at Walmart.

Pandion competes against the likes of UPS, FedEx — and Amazon.

“Companies can no longer rely on just the national parcel carriers, but they also don’t have the resources to build their own parcel delivery capability or a diversified network of national and regional carriers,” Ruffin said in a statement. “They need an alternative. That’s where Pandion comes in.”

The fresh cash will help Pandion open more sortation centers and expand its geographic reach.

Revolution Growth, a D.C. firm that has backed other Seattle startups including Glowforge and Carbon Robotics, led the Series B round. Other investors include Playground Global, Prologis Ventures, Bow Capital, Telstra Ventures, AME Cloud Ventures, Schematic Ventures, Proof, and Sentinel Global.

Revolution Growth partner Kristin Gunther is joining the Pandion board. “The company makes an Amazon-like model accessible to retailers that are looking to improve their logistics agility,” Gunther said in a statement.

Pandion raised $30 million in 2021. Bloomberg reported that its sales could reach $220 million this year.

E-commerce startups such as Pandion rode a pandemic-driven boom in online shopping, attracting gobs of venture capital to fuel growth. That shopping surge eventually cooled, and some logistics companies were forced trim staff or shut down amid a broader slowdown in startup funding.

But Pandion seems to be speeding along, and e-commerce is still growing. U.S. e-commerce sales grew by 7.6% last year, to $1.1 trillion, according to Department of Commerce numbers. Online sales represented 22% of total U.S. retail sales in 2023, up from 21.2% in 2022.

Pandion also announced a series of executive hires, including:

• Brent Cervenka, a longtime Amazon logistics leader who was most recently at Flexport, as chief operating officer
• Jeff Petersen, who was also at Flexport and previously worked at Pandion, as head of network design and strategy
• Jay Sackos, a former Dolly exec, as vice president of sales
• Austin Luhman, a former Walmart director, as head of product

Source: geekwire