- Zonos has raised almost US$70m from Silversmith Capital Partners and a range of individual investors as part of a push to improve commerce flows.
- The firm, which is based in Utah, said that it intended to use the new funding to develop its application programming interfaces (APIs).
- “Our mission is to create trust in global trade. If you are transparent, you bring trust. This was traditionally thought to be a shipping problem, but it is really a technology problem,” said a senior figure at the firm.
Zonos, an international money transfer company focused on the flows of commerce, has confirmed that it has raised US$69m in a Series A funding round.
The firm said that it had raised the money through a round led by Silversmith Capital Partners.
Zonos, which is based in Utah, said that it would use the money to continue to build application programming interfaces (APIs).
These APIs will automatically categorise items and work out an effectively priced total landed cost for international transactions.
There was a range of individual investors in addition to Silversmith Capital Partners.
These included Eric Rea, who serves as chief executive officer of Podium.
Aaron Skonnard, the chief executive officer and co-founder of Pluralsight, was also represented.
This round is the first external capital that Zonos has brought in since it was set up over a decade ago.
The firm is known for its concept of ‘total landed costs’, which accurately calculates taxes, import fees, shipping fees, and more.
This is a particular pain point for a number of customers.
In a statement, the chief executive officer of Zonos pointed out that it was often difficult for companies to work out exactly what the relevant rules and regulations were in certain countries.
“Businesses can’t know all of a country’s laws,” he said.
“Our mission is to create trust in global trade. If you are transparent, you bring trust. This was traditionally thought to be a shipping problem, but it is really a technology problem.”
Todd MacLean, who is from Silversmith Capital Partners, will join the Zonos board of directors.
According to MacLean, Zonos was highly appealing to his company.
“Our diligence said Zonos is the only player to take the data that exists out there and make sense of it,” he said.
He went on to say that customers highly valued Zonos because of its “impressive customer references”.
“Customers love it – we got the most impressive customer references because this demand is already out there, and they are seeing more revenue and their customers have more loyalty because it just works.”
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