Fabric, formerly CommonSense Robotics, today announced that it has closed a $110 million Series B funding round led by Corner Ventures with participation from Aleph, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), Innovation Endeavors, La Maison, Playground Ventures and Temasek.
Fabric plans to use the funds to 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. In 2020, the company plans to rapidly expand across the country in partnership with some of the U.S.’s leading brands. The funding will also be used to grow 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 Elram Goren, Fabric CEO and co-founder. “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.”
Founded in 2015 in Tel Aviv and headquartered in New York, Fabric is the pioneer of micro-fulfillment, a logistics solution that was developed to help all retailers to thrive in the rapidly evolving era of on-demand fulfillment. Traditional fulfillment platforms do not enable retailers to succeed in this hyper-competitive space; a new approach is required.
Fabric’s production-proven micro-fulfillment platform flips traditional fulfillment paradigms on their heads by placing automation in close proximity to end-consumers, enabling a winning combination of speedy delivery, cost reduction, and scale of operations. In October 2018, 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. Recently, Fabric announced the buildout of an automated grocery site with three temperature zones, the first of a 12-site deal in partnership with one of Israel’s largest grocery chains.
“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,” said 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.”
Fabric’s network model offers fulfillment as a service, enabling retailers to leverage a network of sites owned and operated by Fabric with zero capital expenditure and an immediate return on investment. Now, alongside the funding announcement, Fabric is launching a platform model that will enable retailers to build and operate a private network of sites on their own real estate. With the rollout of 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,” said 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.”
Fabric has raised $136 million to date. Its $20 million Series A in February 2018 was led by Playground with participation from seed round investors Aleph and Innovation Endeavors.
About Fabric
Fabric is a logistics platform that makes on-demand fulfillment possible, profitable, and sustainable for retailers while powering every retailer’s unique offering. The company builds multi-tenant and private networks of automated micro-fulfillment centers that make on-demand fulfillment profitable by locating automation physically close to end customers.
Unlike any other micro-fulfillment solution, Fabric’s unique purpose-built proprietary solution enables cloud-like elasticity for retailers, enabling them total flexibility to build a custom solution based on their unique inventory level, desired reach, and opex and capex requirements, expanding and flexing as their needs change.
The company’s solution has been deployed commercially since 2018 and is production-proven. With offices in Tel Aviv and New York, Fabric is rapidly expanding its U.S. operations. Founded in 2015, Fabric is backed by Aleph, Corner Ventures, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB), Innovation Endeavors, La Maison, Playground Ventures, and Temasek.
