Ingram Micro Acquires Shipwire
Shipwire is based in Palo Alto and the company provides a cloud logistics and supply chain management platform for ecommerce retailors. Ingram Micro has acquired Shipwire for an undisclosed amount. Shipwire is the same cloud startup that received nearly $15 million in venture capital. Some of the companies more notable investors are Newell Rubbermaid and eBay. Meakem Becker has also invested in Shipwire.
While the market is still forming, Shipwire has been recognized by several logistics analysts as being a leader in the SaaS logistics arena. Executives at Shipwire struggled with the idea of working towards an IPO and after much deliberation; the leadership decided that partnering with Ingram Micro was the appropriate vehicle for success in the cloud logistics market.
Shipwire’s platform allows retailors to simplify their supply chain by providing a real time inventory of each of the retailer’s warehouses therefore allowing merchants to cut shipping, handling and overhead costs. Currently, on the front side of the transaction, the customer can click only once or twice and have the item delivered to their door by courier. On the back end, this transaction has a lot of moving parts in which Shipwire aims to simplify. Simplification of the logistics process and cutting costs on shipping and handling make Shipwire’s logistics SaaS a must-have for medium to large ecommerce enterprises.
Currently, Ingram Micro offers similar software to Shipwire. Ingram Micro’s logistics suite does not have real-time supply chain management tools. This integration between Shipwire and Ingram Micro seemed to be the next logical step in efforts to making a product that can compete with the likes of existing SaaS supply chain suites. There are competitors in this market such as Trade Gecko and Netsuite however Ingram Micro looks to surpass them all in terms of functionality and cost savings with the acquisition of Shipwire.
