Alumnus garners $17.5 million for start-up expansion

7/10/2017 Victoria Halewicz, ECE ILLINOIS

Divey Gulati is the co-founder of ShipBob, a Chicago-based company delivering for startups at Amazon Prime-like speed.

Written by Victoria Halewicz, ECE ILLINOIS

ECE ILLINOIS and College of Business alumnus Divey Gulati (BSCompE ’10, MBA ’13) is witnessing considerable success and media attention as co-founder of the e-commerce delivery startup ShipBob

The Wall Street Journal and Chicago Tribune took notice when the Chicago-based company announced it had raised $17.5 million in funding. 

Founders Dhruv Sazena and Divey Gulati at ShipBob (Hilary Higgins / Blue Sky)
Founders Dhruv Sazena and Divey Gulati at ShipBob (Hilary Higgins / Blue Sky)
Founded in 2004, ShipBob’s mission is to simplify the shipping process, particularly for smaller online retailers and startups. Currently the company has distribution centers in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and San Francisco, allowing for affordable same-day or next-day delivery in many areas. Their services are particularly impactful for smaller companies due to their lack of personal distribution networks. Shipbob’s approach of shipping from regional warehouses allows for faster shipping than that of a single central hub. 

Retailers, both small and large, are faced with pressures of two-day shipping presented by services like Amazon Prime and Walmart’s site-to-store shipping. Following this new round of funding, ShipBob is planning on expanding into three more cities. The strategy? Analyzing order data and choosing areas with the most demand.

Though the Chicago office currently has 35 employees, the startup plans to expand to around 100 to 125 employees within the next two years. These new roles will welcome engineers, along with additional sales and marketing positions. Each of Shipbob’s warehouses also employees 15 to 20 workers. ShipBob is also in the process of improving its software platform. It is through this platform that retailers can reduce their shipping costs by distributing orders for closer proximity to customers. 

For more information, read the Wall Street Journal and Chicago Tribune articles.

 


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This story was published July 10, 2017.