Tundra, the zero-fee wholesale marketplace, picks up $12 million

Tundra, a new zero-commission wholesale marketplace, has today announced the close of $12 million in Series A funding. The round was led by Redpoint’s Annie Kadavy, with participation from investors such as Initialized Capital, Peterson Ventures, FJ Labs, Switch Ventures, and Background Capital.

Tundra was founded by married couple Arnold and Katie Engel, who previously ran a global supply chain company called Vox Supply Chain. In that world, they quickly realized just how much inefficiency is built into the wholesale market, from disorganized trade shows to transaction fees from the incumbents to a business that’s largely done on phone with pen and paper.

That’s where Tundra comes in.

Tundra allows suppliers to list their product on the platform, which is built to look and feel like a B2C marketplace. Buyers can come on the platform and shop for products, complete with ratings and reviews, supplier performance metrics, and free shipping with easy tracking.

“The wholesale market is set up to benefit big businesses, with other platforms and distributors charging anywhere from 5 percent to 30 percent commission,” said Engel. “That can be particularly pronounced for small businesses.”

Plus, it can be perilous for small players to depend on big platforms like Amazon. Just a few weeks ago, there were rumors that Amazon would focus its attention on big brands like P&G and purge smaller suppliers from the platforms. Amazon denied the rumors, saying it evaluates suppliers on an individual basis.

For Tundra, the hope is to eliminate both the time-consuming and tedious process of negotiating deals at trade shows as well as the cost of simply buying and selling wholesale products online. And, importantly, Tundra has a zero-fee model, which means that buyers and suppliers can operate on the platform without spending a penny, if they so choose.

Of course, the company has to generate revenue in some way, which is why Tundra offers premium options at checkout, such as faster shipping, order insurance, and additional custom clearance and logistics services for international orders.

Having spent a year serving as Head of Strategic Operations growing Uber Freight, Redpoint Managing Director Annie Kadavy saw first-hand just how gargantuan the whole sale market is. During a phone interview, she reminded me that almost every item within view at any given moment was shipped on a truck and purchased at a whole sale price before it was purchased by a consumer in a store.

“Tundra’s greatest challenge ahead id execution because the market opportunity here is very obvious,” said Kadavy. “It’s a huge business that is currently transacted by fax, phone call, and pen and paper, so the opportunity is very clear.”

There is clearly movement in the space. Just last month, Shopify acquired Handshake to handle B2B ecommerce directly for customers. That followed its acquisition of Oberlo, a dropshipping platform, in 2017, signaling that existing platforms realize the opportunity of wholesale ecommerce, as well.

And a recent report stated that B2B ecommerce passed the $1 trillion mark for the first time in 2018.

The opportunity is there, as is the competition, but Tundra comes to the table armed with fresh capital.