- Fabric (formerly known as CommonSense Robotics) has raised $110 million in Series B funding led by Corner Ventures
Fabric (formerly known as CommonSense Robotics) announced it raised $110 million in Series B funding led by Corner Ventures. Aleph, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), Innovation Endeavors, La Maison, Playground Ventures, and Temasek participated in this round of funding as well. Including this round, Fabric has raised a total of $136 million.
With this round of funding, Fabric will accelerate its growth in the U.S. where it is currently building a new infrastructure of micro-fulfillment centers that will help transform last-mile logistics so that on-demand fulfillment can become profitable and scalable for every business. And in 2020, Fabric plans to rapidly expand across the country in partnership with some of the leading brands in the U.S.
The funding round will also be used for growing Fabric’s U.S. based commercial, operations, and technical support teams as well as its engineering teams in Tel Aviv.
“Our production-proven micro-fulfillment platform is fundamentally changing the face of retail,” said Fabric CEO and co-founder Elram Goren. “Driven by our world-class proprietary technology, we are designing and building an entirely new logistics infrastructure in cities so that on-demand fulfillment and delivery can happen faster, cheaper, and at scale. Whether it’s enabling retailers to profitably fulfill one-hour deliveries or helping businesses restock their storefronts more efficiently, we aim to be the solution that empowers businesses to better serve their customers.”
Launched in 2015 in Tel Aviv and headquartered in New York, Fabric is considered the pioneer of micro-fulfillment which is a logistics solution that was developed to help all retailers to thrive in the rapidly evolving era of on-demand fulfillment. And Fabric’s production-proven micro-fulfillment platform flips traditional fulfillment paradigms on their heads by placing automation in close proximity to end-consumers thus enabling a winning combination of speedy delivery, cost reduction, and scale of operations.
Last year, Fabric launched the world’s smallest automated fulfillment center and today the site processes up to 600 orders a day out of just 6,000 square feet with proven one-hour delivery capabilities.
Fabric also announced the building out of an automated grocery site with three temperature zones, the first of a 12-site deal in partnership with one of the largest grocery chains in Israel.
“The demand from the market for a location-first approach to automation is just staggering. Now, with this latest round of funding, Fabric is poised to enter a new stage of hypergrowth,” added Fabric CCO Steve Hornyak — who joined the company earlier this year. “We currently have 14 sites under contract and are rapidly expanding our U.S. presence with plans to launch micro-fulfillment centers in several cities across the U.S. in 2020. The first site in the NYC area is already under construction and will be online in Q1 2020. Our flexible platform and deployment models empower businesses to get closer to their customers while maintaining profitability in whatever way works best for them.”
The Fabric network model offers fulfillment as a service and enables retailers to leverage a network of sites owned and operated by Fabric with zero capital expenditure and an immediate return on investment. And now Fabric is also launching a platform model that will enable retailers to build and operate a private network of sites on their own real estate.
With this new deployment option, Fabric empowers retailers with unparalleled flexibility to build a custom solution that suits each retailer’s unique inventory level, desired reach, and operating and capital expenditure requirements.
“Fabric is the micro-fulfillment market leader with a production-proven platform that drives tremendous value for its retail partners and consumers alike,” explained John Cadeddu, Managing Partner at Corner Ventures. “We are delighted to be partnering with the Fabric team in their incredible vision to reinvent how goods are fulfilled and delivered in this on-demand world, ultimately empowering retailers to provide faster deliveries at lower costs and at scale.”
