E-commerce logistics supplier Stord has acquired rival Shipwire from father or mother firm Ceva Logistics so as to add scale and capabilities in a extremely aggressive market, the growth-mode firm introduced Monday.
The deal allows Stord to broaden its success quantity and footprint with the addition of 12 success facilities, AI know-how and entry to Ceva’s international community of 1,000 warehouses. By including Shipwire’s present Ceva connections to Stord’s logistics platform, prospects will be capable to stage stock throughout both warehouse community, administration mentioned.
The Atlanta-based success specialist highlighted the client advantages of marrying new synthetic intelligence capabilities for order administration with its present outsourced success platform and low-price parcel transport.
Tech-enabled e-commerce logistics suppliers, together with ShipBob and Cart.com, are investing to construct out regional networks, service choices and buyer relationships, and pursuing strategic acquisitions, to leverage demand for on-line buying by way of retailers that more and more function storefronts on a number of marketplaces. Their enlargement is occurring at the same time as financial uncertainty and better emptiness charges have pressured deal exercise within the broader warehouse sector, analysts say.
E-commerce progress has cooled off for the reason that Covid-induced spike in 2020 and 2021, however continues to be sturdy as customers worth the comfort, wider choice and decrease costs typically discovered on digital channels. Over the previous decade, U.S. e-commerce retail gross sales have jumped $275% to $304.2 billion, in accordance with the Census Bureau. E-commerce represents 16.3% of retail gross sales as of mid-2025, up from 14.6% in 2021.
Many logistics suppliers went into enterprise as on-line buying took off final decade. Acquisitions are tempting as a result of rising income will be troublesome for corporations that depend upon startup and mid-size product sellers, lots of whom battle to realize profitability, mentioned Chris Considine, retail provide chain observe chief at Alix Companions, in a cellphone interview.
Stord, based in 2015, serves as a one-stop store for e-tailers, dealing with greater than $10 billion price of transactions from prospects’ on-line checkout to last-mile supply, in addition to returns, with a collection of software program for managing stock, order processing, warehouse selecting and packing, and parcel transportation. The corporate’s enterprise mannequin focuses on serving to small-and-medium corporations that lack assets to effectively handle orders and stock inhouse, and obtain supply speeds similar to massive retail enterprises. It operates 11 main success hubs in 13 buildings, together with in the UK and the Netherlands, and has relationships with many lead logistics suppliers to offer extra capability in dozens of places.
Direct-to-consumer and B2B manufacturers that use Stord embody Seed Well being, Native (private care), Jolie (bathe filter), Quip (oral wellness), Zero Proof (non-alcoholic drinks), Athletic Greens (dietary supplements) and Goodr (sun shades). Stord says it delivered greater than 30 million packages to round 11.5% of U.S. properties final 12 months.
“The timing is nice for them to make acquisitions proper now as a result of the market’s challenged. When you imagine folks will maintain ordering stuff to their properties [now is good for transactions] as a result of they’ll get higher offers. And in case you imagine within the longevity of the market and the manufacturers that they’ve managed to safe, that are scorching manufacturers, then I believe they’ll proceed to develop,” Considine mentioned of Stord. “I believe they’ll use the extra capability as a result of their prospects are rising.”
Shipwire is Stord’s fifth acquisition. In Might, Stord raised greater than $200 million in Collection E funding in fairness and debt from a number of banks and enterprise funds, which valued the corporate at $1.5 billion. In complete, Stord has raised $325 million from buyers. Per week later, it acquired Ware2Go, an on-demand warehousing and success community from UPS for an undisclosed sum. Stord mentioned the acquisition added 2.5 million sq. ft to the corporate’s present warehouse community.
Stord generated $147 million in income in 2025, in accordance with database GetLatka.
“When it comes to e-commerce success, they’ve good capabilities. They’ve constructed their very own tech stack, which they declare provides them a bonus and helped them get their valuation,” however the valuation is working far forward of outcomes, mentioned Evan Armstrong, a logistics business analyst and CEO of Armstrong & Associates. He estimates Stord’s valuation might be nearer to $2.3 billion now, which is extra according to corporations which have earnings curiosity, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $280 million. Stord’s EBITDA might be within the vary of $28 million, he mentioned.
“I’m unsure how that provides up,” Armstrong added. He ranked Stord at about seventy fifth within the nation for dimension of warehouse house below direct administration.
Silicon Valley-based Shipwire supplies success, warehousing and transport service for direct-to-consumer and dropshipping retail channels. Shops that dropship buy objects from a 3rd social gathering and ship on to the client with out holding the merchandise in inventory. Shipwire’s know-how hub integrates immediately with greater than 200 e-commerce platforms and marketplaces, permitting on-line retailers to prepare and implement their provide chains from a single related platform.
The Shipwire acquisition primarily expands capabilities in the USA, but in addition provides warehouses in Europe, the UK and Asia.
Monday’s deal contains Shipwire’s know-how division, a gaggle of consultants that has constructed proprietary interfaces between the corporate’s platform, prospects and marketplaces, and is aggressively deploying AI performance. Stord, which beforehand introduced plans to rent greater than 50 AI specialists in 2025 and 2026, mentioned the Shipwire group will assist improve its present order administration system and combine Shipwire’s companions into Stord’s ecosystem, accelerating Stord’s AI initiatives.
Warehousing and success suppliers investing in AI for technology-enabled capabilities, operational efficiencies, and high-touch buyer companies are anticipated to outperform opponents with outdated operations, favoring corporations with the assets to put money into know-how, in accordance with funding financial institution Capstone Companions.
Stord additionally positive factors a big base of shoppers throughout attire, client electronics, client items, food-and- beverage, and health-and-beauty sectors.
Phrases of the transaction weren’t disclosed.
Shipwire was acquired by Ingram Micro, a know-how distribution large, in late 2013 and expanded globally. In 2022, French ocean transport and logistics conglomerate CMA CGM acquired Ingram Micro’s e-commerce and lifecycle companies unit for $3 billion and mixed it with Ceva Logistics, the contract logistics agency it purchased in 2019.
“In concentrating on our core providing through this divestment, Ceva Logistics will proceed to ship world-class logistics to our international prospects and provide chain companions, together with for Shipwire and Stord,” Ceva mentioned in a press release offered to FreightWaves.
“By buying Shipwire, Stord is even higher positioned to assist manufacturers of all sizes ship unparalleled client experiences on each order, each time, wherever on the planet,” mentioned Sean Henry, CEO and co-founder of Stord, in a information launch.
Considine mentioned his expertise with Stord whereas interim provide chain officer at Thrasio, an organization that aggregates third-party Amazon sellers to create larger portfolio worth, was optimistic.
“They have been distinctively higher at serving to me as a buyer perceive my very own enterprise transaction developments and reporting my stock well being. They have been doing issues that the standard 3PL doesn’t do in a quarterly enterprise evaluate. They have been distinctive of their programs, buyer interfaces, and use of knowledge and analytics,” he mentioned.
And on a private degree, “at any time when I order a product from them, it at all times arrives correctly on time, nicely packed out, nicely labeled, in good situation. They do job of execution,” Considine mentioned.
Stord just lately acquired U.Okay.-based Penny Black, a startup software-as-a-service resolution that gives hyper-personalized post-purchase inserts to boost a model expertise and generate new income. And final month it introduced plans to take a position $40 million over the following decade to broaden and modernize its largest transport heart, situated in Hebron, Kentucky, close to the Cincinnati-Northern Kentucky Worldwide Airport, to maintain up with rising demand for on-line buying.
“They’re making good acquisitions of companies which have worth and rising buyer bases. Among the folks they acquired perhaps weren’t rising like they needed, and so it was time for them to promote,” mentioned Considine.
Stord’s multi-user amenities course of orders that movement in from numerous marketplaces and different gross sales channels. Initially, stock in inbound containers is catalogued in Stord’s warehouse administration system utilizing barcode scanners. Choose-and-packing is personalized to every buyer’s wants, assisted by robotic shuttle carts that transfer between stations.
Stord’s parcel know-how mechanically selects the most effective parcel provider and repair degree for every bundle primarily based on the cargo’s particular person traits, similar to dimension or geographical area, and which supply supplier can meet the anticipated supply date on the most cost-effective value. Along with shifting packages to purchasers’ web site prospects, Stord additionally helps manufacturers construct pallets for less-than-truckload success to retail distributors.
Stord mentioned cargo processing elevated greater than 50% for Black Friday and Cyber Monday versus the identical interval in 2024, whereas lowering click-to-ship instances by over an hour on each order.
Different current e-commerce-focused transactions embody Dealt with Commerce shopping for Hook Logistics, a third-party logistics supplier of e-commerce and B2B success companies, in July and DHL buying IDS Achievement and reverse logistics specialist Inmar Provide Chain Options final 12 months.
“The warehousing and success house is massively fragmented and ripe for accelerated consolidation as know-how and nationwide networks turn out to be more and more essential to compete. Deal exercise has slowed with broader financial headwinds, however it can doubtless reaccelerate when progress across the items a part of the economic system strengthens,” mentioned Gordon Mackay, managing director for transportation and logistics at Capstone Companions, in a market replace final month.
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