Dubai-based logistics Software as a Service (SaaS) startup zip24 has raised US$1.2 million in a pre-series round, led by London-based Sturgeon Capital, along with Angel investors from the UK and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, including Hayaat Group, Teqvisory, and Robert Kay.

• zip24’s customers include over 100 e-commerce merchants, retailers, logistics, FMCG companies, and restaurants.
• zip24’s solutions enable their customers to save substantial revenues that would otherwise be lost to expensive delivery and fulfilment service providers.
• The latest USD $1.2 million round will fund the expansion of zip24’s tech, product & operations teams in Tashkent, Dubai, and London. 
• zip24 seeks to become a leading e-commerce logistics technology enabler for our customers.

The current round of funding will be used to further expand tech, product, support, and sales/marketing teams, particularly at zip24’s main operating base in Tashkent, Uzbekistan.

zip24 plans to strengthen operations by deploying direct sales and support personnel in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (UAE) & expand to the UK during the second half of 2021.

With our product suite from fulfilment to the last mile, we will ultimately enable our customers to help any e-commerce & on-demand delivery business to become more agile.  We have already helped our customers to fulfil and deliver millions of orders over the past 12 months”, said Muzaffar Karabaev, CEO of zip24.

We aim to become the leading logistics technology enabler for our customers in the next phase of our growth. We are enabling e-commerce merchants, retailers, logistics, FMCG companies, and restaurants, particularly startup operators in the space.

The focus of zip24 has been in the GCC countries, Pakistan, and Central Asia, but our 100+ customers are in over 20+ countries”, said Mr. Karabaev.

“Our mission is to provide innovative and fast deployable logistics SaaS stacks to e-Commerce merchants, logistics operators, and other customers,” said Co-Founder and Executive Director Asif Keshodia of zip24.

 “We help these customers to improve their experience and to achieve operational cost efficiencies. With our tech stacks, they reduce their dependence on expensive delivery and fulfillment service providers, which sometimes take away a third of the revenues from their merchants. You name it – predictive forecasting with AI/ML tools, route optimization, and cross-border tracking. Our solution can do it all, and at a fraction of the cost of their existing service providers. We are in the business of saving our customers’ revenues”, said Mr. Keshodia.

“Sturgeon is proud to be leading this round for zip24. We find the combination of a founding team of seasoned entrepreneurs and operators tackling an important issue in underserved and increasingly large markets, to make the opportunity particularly compelling, and are very much looking forward to working with the company” said Mr. Kiyan Zandiyeh, CEO Sturgeon Capital

Developing new SaaS products 

zip24 is currently enhancing its delivery and fulfilment cloud-based SaaS stacks, Shipox and Storfox, respectively. 

Shipox provides users with a complete delivery management software (DMS) solution from order creation to delivery. Shipox also offers unique features such as a white-label app, driver app, and real-time tracking of all delivery personnel and vehicles.  It also can provide plug-ins and integration engines connecting various e-commerce operators from Magento to Shopify. Shipox also offers easy order-drop functionalities, including batch/CSV from e-commerce websites, supermarkets, pharmacies, restaurants, and more.  

zip24’s new addition, Storfox is a cloud-based fulfilment engine that provides a one-stop solution to e-commerce/2PL/3PL companies involved with logistics, warehouse management & fulfillment. 

Storfox will offer an extensive network of fulfilment networks for ‘pick/pack/ship’ and billing support, with various options, a built-in account management system, and simple & clean invoicing, all done within the system with seamless downstream shipping integration to Shipox stack.