Barcelona is consolidating itself as one of Europe's preferred cities for startups when deciding where to open their corporate offices or development units. The French company Cubyn is finalizing the opening of a headquarters in the city for which it plans to hire, in a first stage, a team of twenty people. From this delegation, the startup's entry into the Spanish logistics market next April will be directed, and the launch of a 10,000 square meter warehouse in Madrid will be supervised, which will mean the creation of 200 jobs. Company sources explain that central Spain has been chosen to locate the logistics platform because the company already has another warehouse in the South of France and thus will be able to complete its geographical coverage and also reach Portugal.
Cubyn claims to have developed, thanks to an intensive use of technology, a model that allows to reduce by 30% the logistics costs of e-commerce companies. According to the startup, they have their own algorithm that optimizes the distribution of millions of online purchases, which reduces the costs of the marketplaces they work for and improves customer satisfaction. Their fulfillment on-demand model allows Cubyn to automatically process orders received by their clients from their warehouses and determine the most efficient transport network in each case.
"Cubyn is a disruptor in this independent and more cost-efficient logistics market for e-commerce; we are a better, faster, and cross-border service with a price 30% lower than the market average," assures Adrien Fernandez Baca, CEO of the company.
Cubyn has just received the support of Eurazeo, one of the main European investment funds, which has participated in a Series C financing round valued at 35 million euros. This capital has been contributed mainly by Eurazeo and Bpifrance Large Venture, although other investors have also participated. The startup, which until now has raised 55 million in capital, will allocate these new resources to open markets in Spain, Portugal, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Germany. The goal is to double the company's team, which is now 85 people and aims to end 2021 with more than 170. In parallel, Cubyn will open a new warehouse in Madrid and another automated platform of 25,000 square meters in the Paris region to improve delivery times.
"Spain and Portugal together represent one of the five largest markets for e-commerce in Europe, but they still have a long way to go in terms of logistical maturity; we have many opportunities to develop," highlights the CEO and co-founder of Cubyn.
According to the consulting firm McKinsey, the pandemic has caused the online shopping business to explode worldwide. Thus, between March and June 2020 alone, growth was as much as in the last ten years. It is estimated that the fulfillment market for e-commerce moves 500,000 million euros worldwide, but it is very fragmented. In its first full year of activity, Cubyn has managed to increase the value of transported goods from 30 million to 250 million euros, with more than 5 million shipments processed from Paris.
"Cubyn has developed a high-quality solution in just 18 months and with limited economic resources. Now, it has the best technology to conquer the European market and we are very excited to be part of this deployment phase," says Louis Bô, investment director at Eurazeo. This fund, which was a shareholder of the Catalan company Desigual, has stakes in more than 400 companies, with assets under management of 18,800 million euros.