EquaShip Fills Out Fundraising Round, Now at $1.5M

EquaShip, the Seattle startup that’s aiming to wrangle dramatically cheaper shipping costs for small and medium-sized businesses, has added another $600,000 in financing from undisclosed investors. That pushes the startup’s total funding to $1.5 million, following the announcement of a $900,000 investment in June.

EquaShip rolled out its service in October, targeting the small sellers—many of them doing business on eBay and Amazon—who don’t get big-account treatment fro FedEx and UPS. Founder and CEO Ron Wiener says there are millions of those businesses around the country, and EquaShip says it can offer them rates that are “typically 28 percent to 79 percent below UPS and FedEx residential ground rates.”

EquaShip does that by partnering with smaller carriers, who funnel packages through the U.S. Postal Service for final delivery—what’s known as a consolidator service. EquaShip also offers package tracking and insurance. The company plans to use the new investment to add software features and drop-off locations.

Author: Curt Woodward

Curt covered technology and innovation in the Boston area for Xconomy. He previously worked in Xconomy’s Seattle bureau and continued some coverage of Seattle-area tech companies, including Amazon and Microsoft. Curt joined Xconomy in February 2011 after nearly nine years with The Associated Press, the world's largest news organization. He worked in three states and covered a wide variety of beats for the AP, including business, law, politics, government, and general mayhem. A native Washingtonian, Curt earned a bachelor's degree in journalism from Western Washington University in Bellingham, WA. As a past president of the state's Capitol Correspondents Association, he led efforts to expand statehouse press credentialing to online news outlets for the first time.