Swapbox, Inc.

Send and Receive packages asynchronously. No missed deliveries. No waiting in line.

  • A lean Y Combinator company with obsessive growth - We came out of YC with a prototype in 2013. Each kiosk is profitable, we already have 60% margins & growing.

  • We have 0 Capex. Our capital is provided by a manufacturing partner and we pay a portion of revenue.

  • Market Opportunity in the US alone is $15B and growing. Space is very new!

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Founder : Neel Murthy, Nitin Shantharam
Location : San Francisco
Target : $3,000,000
Share Type : Common Stock

Business Overview


  • Swapbox is the first brand and carrier agnostic last and first mile delivery network. We operate kiosks that function as automated post offices in the retail settings (places the people already go weekly). Users simply sign up online and can redirect packages from any ecommerce site or through any carrier to their local Swapbox. Once the package arrives, they are notified and can pickup the package on their own schedule (usually on the way home from work).

  • In addition, we’ve started offering a new solution where customers can skip the post office line and just drop off an item at a Swapbox which gets shipped out for them through our partnerships with carriers. Our goal is to bring the user interaction piece of package logistics into the 21st century rather than it’s currently outdated state.

Transaction Overview


  • Swapbox raised $1.7M in seed funding. We are a Y Combinator company with notable investors including Tony Hsieh, Fuel Capital, Y Combinator, and notable angels including Trevor Blackwell (YC Partner), Mitch Lowe (the former CEO of Redbox & Co-Founder of Netflix).

  • We’re raising an additional $1M in convertible notes as we’re raising a Series A in late Q3 (we’re 80% of the way to profitability, we’re projecting that in Q3 we will be all the way there and then we’ll be ready to raise a large Series A and ratchet up growth). We’ll only take more if it comes with the right partner and some BD in China.

Investment Highlight


  • Lean YC company with obsessive growth - We came out of YC with a prototype in 2013. Spent a year developing the product and deployed our first unit in retail in 2014. We then spent the next year perfecting the unit economics of that Swapbox. From there we scaled to 35 locations rapidly with 0 capex on the last 11 units and moving forward on all units. We’ve grown revenue 20% MoM at least and are poised to be profitable in less than 4 months, after which we’ll raise a big Series A to start rapidly scaling.

  • No Capex - We’re hardware. However, we’ve demonstrated the sustainable unit economics of our machines, and have since partnered with large hardware companies to finance the capex for a portion of our revenue. This allows us to scale very rapidly with limited blockers.

  • Rapidly growing revenue - Our current revenue is ~$1K per Swapbox per month. However, with the advent of ad revenue that we starting selling this month, the revenue is $4K per Swapbox per month (not on all kiosks yet, but will be by Q3). We’re selling in the out of home market similar to bus wraps, billboards, etc. and are differentiated in that all the customers and eyeballs we have are more focused and will already be active online shoppers. Matt built this ad network for the WWE very successfully and has the relevant experience need to build out the first indoor billboard network.

About Management Team


  • Neel Murthy (CEO) - BS in CS from Stanford. Dropped out of the MS/MBA program to start Swapbox. Formerly at Zynga and sold a previous company, videocrank for a 5x exit.

  • Nitin Shantharam (CTO) - BS/MS in Computer Science from UCI. Dropped out of MIT pHD to start Swapbox. Former hardware engineer on Xbox at Microsoft, and of Google.

  • Matt Frischer (Head of Business Development) - Former head of growth at Linc, BranchOut, and the WWE. Handled top accounts at Saatchi & Saatchi as an ad buyer.

About Our Product


  • Swapbox is the first brand and carrier agnostic locker system that solves both first and last mile delivery issues. We have a patented approach to solve this problem and cover all multi carrier solutions (i.e. Amazon Lockers that does only Amazon packages doesn’t fall under our perview). The solution is also fully modular and can be extended in size in the field to deal with increased demand. We also have designed a rapid control board that allows our compartments to open faster than other on the market for a better customer experience.

  • The software is also fully developed in house and encompass both web and mobile solutions for interacting with the kiosk and consolidating pickup and drop off info. It’s seamless and includes the ability to pickup from the kiosk via a mobile device (don’t even need to touch the screen, just stand in front of a Swapbox with the mobile app installed).

  • Finally, we also provide a Swapbox API (it’s what our solutions are built on) that allows 3rd party providers to use the Swapbox network to allow users to interact with their services. We’re currently beta testing it, but have plans to release it publicly in Q1 2017. Our early beta testing partners include a AirBnB hosting company using it to get keys to the renter and a transit station for couriers that allow them to store packages for 30-60 minutes as transfers between couriers.

About Industry

    Last mile delivery is still a nascent space but is growing dramatically YoY because of the explosion of e-commerce and the inability for current postal infrastructures to handle it. In the US alone, there’s over 1B missed deliveries, with over 4-5B being hard and inconvenient deliveries, and this is all growing 17+% YoY.

Financials

Available on further discussion with registered investors.

About Competitor


  • Main competitor is Amazon. They’ve put a lot of resources into Amazon Locker and it’s one of their big bets for last mile user experience. However, since the units are tied to a specific brand, there is a big limitation for user experiences. We’re brand and carrier agnostic so customers know they can receive all items in one location with one last mile UX which is unified across all online shopping. In addition, since Amazon is competitive with so many companies, real estate is a hard part of the business for them to maximize. For example, we have a partnership with Safeway, they repeatedly refused Amazon Lockers due to Amazon’s Fresh product. In addition, Staples and Radio Shack both kicked out Amazon Lockers due to competitiveness.

  • There’s also some on demand competitors. However, those folks are essentially trying to redesign UPS and are not resource efficient. They all lose money on every delivery while we make a lot of money of each delivery (60% margins).

Exit Strategy


  • Best case - We realize full potential and can become a self-sustaining company (we’ve already secured 0 capex expansion, and have a sustainable source of revenue, just need to make sure channels stay open and margins continue to be high)

  • Conservative case - Acquisition by a large ecommerce site that wants to compete with Amazon, a private carrier like UPS, Fedex, etc., or a REIT/ real estate tech co / kiosk company (e.g. general growth, coinstar, realpage)

Risk Warnings
Disclosure: Investing in startups carries a high degree of risk. In general, financial and operating risks confronting both early and developmental-stage companies, as well as more mature expansion-stage companies are significant. Many emerging growth companies go out of businesses every year. It is difficult to know how companies will grow, if at all, or what changes may occur in the market. A loss of an investors entire investment is possible and no profit may be realized. Investors are responsible for conducting their own due diligence. * It should not be assumed that recommendations made in the future will be profitable or will equal the performance of securities in this list

  • Swapbox is the first brand and carrier agnostic locker system that solves both first and last mile delivery issues. We have a patented approach to solve this problem and cover all multi carrier solutions (i.e. Amazon Lockers that does only Amazon packages doesn’t fall under our perview). The solution is also fully modular and can be extended in size in the field to deal with increased demand. We also have designed a rapid control board that allows our compartments to open faster than other on the market for a better customer experience.

  • The software is also fully developed in house and encompass both web and mobile solutions for interacting with the kiosk and consolidating pickup and drop off info. It’s seamless and includes the ability to pickup from the kiosk via a mobile device (don’t even need to touch the screen, just stand in front of a Swapbox with the mobile app installed).

  • Finally, we also provide a Swapbox API (it’s what our solutions are built on) that allows 3rd party providers to use the Swapbox network to allow users to interact with their services. We’re currently beta testing it, but have plans to release it publicly in Q1 2017. Our early beta testing partners include a AirBnB hosting company using it to get keys to the renter and a transit station for couriers that allow them to store packages for 30-60 minutes as transfers between couriers.

This section of information is for our registered investor only. Please Sign Up as a Shanghai Valley investor.




This section of information is for our registered investor only. Please Sign Up as a Shanghai Valley investor.




This section of information is for our registered investor only. Please Sign Up as a Shanghai Valley investor.




This section of information is for our registered investor only. Please Sign Up as a Shanghai Valley investor.




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