In an interview with Forbes on Friday (Jan. 21), Co-founder and CEO Evan Walker said his company is worth $1.25 billion following a $200 million funding round.
Route, which is based in Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, says it plans to add to its 450-person workforce to help develop new features for its technology, like increased personalization.
“Delivery is evolving, and some of it sounds very science fiction-y. It is delivery by drone and by autonomous driver,” Walker said. “I think transparency is a very big thing. There’s no reason anything should be lost anymore.”
Read more: Route Package Tracker Raises $12M For AI Enhancements
With the Route app, customers can visually track and protect online orders as well as resolve issues. Aside from merchandise tracking, Route also helps businesses market additional products to customers who’ve bought from them before and provides built-in shipping insurance.
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“Historically, the post-purchase experience has lacked transparency for consumers and been a missed engagement opportunity for both merchants,” Walker said in 2019, when the company raised $12 million in seed funding.
Walker, 41, has spent close to 30 years in the eCommerce space, getting his start selling video games out of his bedroom with the help of a $2,000 loan from his dad.
“I sold a few video games and got frustrated that I wasn’t doing more,” he told Forbes. “Then I got a phone call for a $500,000 order of productivity software. The company instantly took off.”
At 19, he sold that business – Netsoft – for more than $10 million, and developed the idea for Route seven years ago when negotiating shipping for an antique truck he’d purchased in Italy.
He and Mike Moreno co-founded Route in 2019 to help small merchants compete in an increasingly global marketplace.
“Amazon wins because everything is centralized, but no one wants to sell on Amazon anymore,” Walker said. “Small merchants don’t have those same tools, and even big merchants don’t have the tools.”
