The startup byrd provides e-commerce merchants with warehousing in France, Germany, the U.K., the Netherlands, Austria, Italy and Spain. It plans on adding three more countries to the list this year (Sweden, Denmark, and Poland), which will bring the total up to 30 warehouses in 10 countries.
byrd does not own any of these warehouses but provides them with a software solution that connects them to merchants. Verve Ventures first invested in byrd in 2020. In May 2022, byrd raised EUR 50m in a financing round led by Cambridge Capital, a private equity firm investing in the supply chain sector. byrd will use the new funds to expand their network and the services around it and enter new verticals like apparel or electronics.

What is a typical merchant that uses byrd to ship their goods to customers?
When we started, our typical customers were small companies with one or two employees who used to do their own fulfillment. Today, we have a large customer base that includes very large companies such as Campari or Durex. byrd handles all Durex online orders in Germany, for example. There is a very large growth opportunity out there for byrd, because companies want to focus on their core competencies and work with a specialist like byrd to make their logistics as efficient as possible.

Why do warehouses want to work with byrd, aren’t they in a way also your competitors?
byrd has managed to build quite a compelling offering for them. We provide them with warehouse management software and fill up their unused capacity by bringing customers. Some of them lack the necessary software, others use outdated systems, and some use the software provided by online shops, which makes them dependent on one specific system. For warehouses, byrd is an ideal way to enter e-commerce and increase sales.

byrd also plans to offer its services to merchants that are using Amazon to sell their products. What can you offer that Amazon cannot?
If you sell goods on Amazon you can choose between fulfillment by Amazon, FBA, or fulfillment by the merchant, FBM, which means handling fulfillment yourself or via a 3PL provider like byrd. Working with byrd makes merchants which want to outsource fulfillment independent of the standards that Amazon imposes. Using byrd doesn’t only mean more flexibility but is also a way to own and build the relationship with the end client, which will not just receive another box from Amazon. As a merchant, you might want to include a flyer, for example, that guides customers to your online shop, which is possible when using byrd, but not Amazon.

byrd just raised EUR 50m. What will you use the funds for?
By expanding into new geographies, byrd will create the largest independent e-commerce fulfillment network in Europe. But we’ll also continue investing in countries where we’re already present to strengthen our position. We’ll hire country managers and increase our local presence to drive sales and sign new customers.

Concerning hiring for new positions, byrd wants to grow its staff from 230 people to 400 by the end of the year. That’s a very ambitious plan.
We have a very solid HR team that will execute this plan. Because byrd is seen as a cool company to work for, we receive a lot of inbound applications, more than 1000 last month alone. Of course, it’s necessary to filter them and have the right processes in place. Even then, hiring is time-consuming. I spend an important part of my time in interviews. After all, our employees are our key asset.

In the US, Shopify recently acquired fulfillment technology provider Deliverr for USD 2.1bn. What does that mean for byrd?
I think it is a signal that we’re on the right track. Deliverr, like byrd, operates a virtual network of warehouses and doesn’t own any of these assets. In Europe, a few of our competitors are trying to build their own warehouses but this simply doesn’t scale well and needs a lot of time and money to build.

The environment for large financing rounds seems to have deteriorated, but byrd is in the lucky position to have secured your financing. What does that mean for you?
We founders didn’t even have time to celebrate the closing yet (laughs). But I think it is true, that times will be more challenging for those who plan to raise in the future. We plan to stay prudent, as 2022 will probably be a difficult year for e-commerce. In the past two years, the growth of e-commerce, in general, was incredibly strong, but this year growth of the sector will be more subdued. That is also a reason why it makes sense for us to expand to new geographies and continue our hiring for experts that understand the local e-commerce markets.

What is byrd’s ambition for the future?
We want to establish byrd as a standard like Amazon Prime. We want to become a brand visible to end customers, a brand they can trust to assure next-day delivery, and at one point in the future even same-day delivery. Of course, we need to be present in almost every country in Europe to get there.