Swap lands $100M Series C to tackle fragmented global e-commerce operations
Swap, a startup building an operating system for cross-border e-commerce operations, has raised $100 million in a Series C round co-led by DST Global and ICONIQ. The financing comes six months after the company announced a $40 million Series B led by ICONIQ, and will be used to accelerate international expansion and deepen its AI-driven product suite for brands selling across borders.
The company is positioning itself as a response to a persistent set of pain points for modern online retailers: returns that can consume a significant portion of revenue, unpredictable demand that leaves inventory misaligned, and the complexity of duties, taxes, and carrier coordination when shipping internationally. Many brands, especially mid-sized ones, rely on a patchwork of tools that handle individual tasks but do not share data cleanly, adding manual work and increasing the risk of costly errors.
The problem: returns, duties, and disconnected software
As global e-commerce scales, operational friction has become a primary constraint on profitability. Returns can materially erode margins, particularly in categories like apparel where fit and preference drive higher return rates. Cross-border commerce adds further layers: import duties and taxes that are difficult to estimate upfront, inconsistent carrier performance across regions, and complex refund processes when items move back across borders.
Swap says its platform consolidates key workflows—returns handling, international shipping, demand forecasting powered by AI, tax processing, and payments—into a single dashboard. The company claims brands using the system retain 12% more cash and have achieved 111% year-over-year sales growth, citing customers including The Frankie Shop and Pangaia.
From returns tool to “agentic commerce” infrastructure
Founded in 2022 by Sam Atkinson and Zach Bailet, Swap traces its origin to the founders’ own experience running an online store, Slow Goods, which attempted to sell handmade crafts sourced from Africa to the UK and other markets. They encountered duty fees, fragmented carrier options, and returns logistics that, in their view, could not be solved with a single point solution.
Initially focused on returns, Swap later expanded into cross-border capabilities, which the company describes as foundational for building a broader commerce infrastructure layer. The goal, according to the founders, is to provide mid-sized brands—roughly those doing $5 million to $100 million in annual sales—with tools typically associated with larger enterprises, without requiring a complex vendor stack or extensive internal operations teams.
What the platform does
Swap says its system automates and orchestrates tasks that often sit across multiple vendors:
- Locking in import costs upfront by acting as the official importer
- Automating tax refunds when returns occur
- Using AI to forecast demand and reduce stock-outs
- Providing virtual fitting room tools aimed at increasing conversion and lowering returns
The company claims its virtual fitting tools can lift sales by 65% while reducing returns, though it did not disclose methodology or the number of merchants included in those results.
Competing with point solutions by bundling the “operational stack”
In comments attributed to Sam Atkinson, the company describes its approach as an “agentic commerce operating system,” arguing that brands are underserved by tools that solve only one operational slice—returns, shipping, tax, protection, or planning—forcing merchants to reconcile data across systems and manage workflow gaps manually.
The company also emphasizes tight integration with Shopify, saying the embedded experience helps drive adoption and retention. It claims merchants can achieve “30% better margins” through the combined effect of streamlined operations and reduced leakage from duties, returns costs, and inefficiencies, though the company did not provide audited financial validation.
Swap competes in a crowded ecosystem that includes returns and post-purchase platforms such as AfterShip, Loop, and Redo. Its bet is that consolidating multiple operational layers into a unified system—rather than offering a single workflow—will be more defensible and more valuable as cross-border commerce becomes standard for digitally native brands.
What’s next: expansion beyond current core markets
With the Series C proceeds, Swap plans to expand outside its current footprint in the US, EU, Australia, and Canada, and to target verticals where cross-border complexity and return rates can be especially punishing, including beauty, home goods, and consumer gadgets.
The company did not disclose valuation, total funding to date, or revenue figures in the announcement. It also did not immediately respond to a request for comment regarding diversity and inclusion initiatives at the time of publication.
As global e-commerce continues to shift from growth-at-all-costs to efficiency and margin discipline, platforms that can reduce operational drag—especially across borders—are attracting investor attention. Swap is betting that the next phase of commerce infrastructure will be defined not by individual tools, but by integrated systems where data, workflows, and AI-native automation are designed to work together.
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