Dark Store, Urban Fulfillment Delivery center raises $7.5M

The Dark Store was founded in the year 2017 by Lee Hnetinka with its headquarters located in San Francisco, USA. Dark Store was first launched in the United Kingdom and later it is spread all over the European Union in which France is the topmost. The mission of the store is to give fulfillment to the customers which have become a lost assert in today’s busy lives. The Dark Store is even famous as the Dark Supermarket and Dotcom Centre. It means a Distribution Centre or a European Retail Outlet which feeds solely for online shopping. The other biggest achievement of Dark Store is that it doesn’t charge any extra fee to its customers like any other company.

Funding

Recently, Dark Store has raised $7.5M with PivotNorth Capital as lead investor and Cota Capital, Village Global, Firebolt Ventures as partner investors. These new funds will be used for the development of same-day delivery centers.

What is Dark Store?

1. A Technology company
   At Dark Store, the technology that is used is not a common technology among all e-commerce stores. The technology is reinvented separately only to gain fulfillment. The costs are lowered in fulfillment to approach and satisfy the customers.
2. Accessible and fast delivery
   Traditional fulfillment is born in the year 1997 along with the internet which is still not updated. Because of which there is inefficiency and lack of satisfaction in delivering the products to customers. But it is different at Dark Store. Shipping is more efficient which brings fulfillment closer to the customer. It raised to fast delivery and improved accessibility to everyone.
3. Honest fulfillment
   The total percentage of revenue an average brand spends on fulfillment is 25% which is mostly because of inefficient traditional fulfillment practices. But the cost is brought down to as low as 3% with Dark Store for a brand. Honest fulfillment is the only reason for this change.
4. Simplicity and Ease
   Logistics and Fulfillment are complicated, and that is the reason for starting the Dark Store to make it easy and simple. Fulfillment is powered at Dark Store with its Intelligent routing and API. Its faster delivery speeds are added advantage with a very lower price.
5. Automation and AI
   The focus of Dark Store is to make fulfillment smarter compared to any other store. The way fulfillment is gained can be leveraged by implementing the latest AI and robotic automation. This will improve the course of the World, in addition, to reduce the value for fulfillment and create efficiencies.

Partnership with Dark Store

Dark Store invites partnership with various stores and Malls which in turn can be used to grow in fulfillment.
Brick and Mortar Store: Any Mortar or Brick store will always need excess space. And when partnered with Dark Store, the purpose can be solved.
Mall: In today’s lifestyle malls are the fastest growing industry. And each mall needs to be really spacious and must fulfill all the requirements to its customers. Dark Store can be a solution for Malls.
3PL: The best way to improve their business for any 3PL is by partnering with Dark Store.
Cross Dock: Any cross-docking company can improve their business by partnering with Dark Store.
Storage Facility: To increase revenue, the most suggested way for storage facilities is to partner with Dark Store.

Conclusion

Dark store is a large warehouse which can be used as an Order Fulfillment Platform for Online Sales and even as a click-and-collect service where a customer can enter and collect an item that is ordered online without any waste of time. As we all know, today e-commerce is one of the fastest growing industry and then, Dark Store appeared with all the required features making it easily accessible and fast delivery on the same day for the customers which made it the most successful company.