logo
Cart.com touts $1.6B valuation following $50M fundraise

Cart.com touts $1.6B valuation following $50M fundraise

Axios12-05-2025
Cart.com is now valued at $1.6 billion after raising an additional $50 million in funding, the company tells Axios.
Why it matters: Cart acquired OceanX in December and plans to close another one or two deals by the end of 2025, CEO Omair Tariq says.
What they're saying:"We'll continue to be very acquisitive," Tariq says. "This capital just makes a lot of that stuff easier."
The e-commerce logistics startup is already eyeing acquisition targets, but Tariq declined to specify whether they would be large deals or tuck-ins.
"I would imagine our competitors are looking at similar deals," he says.
Follow the money: BlackRock and Neuberger Berman led the financing, alongside new investors, such as eGateway Capital. The company has raised $475 million to-date
Cart is on track to cross $500 million in revenue this year, Tariq says.
Catch up quick: Cart was valued at $1.2 billion ahead of its $130 million Series C raise extension last July.
Last April, Cart acquired Amify, an Amazon marketplace optimization and advertising solution, and in the past year it has onboarded customers like Authentic Brands Group and Bluestar Alliance.
State of play: Many e-commerce shippers have been walloped by the closure of the de minimis loophole, which allowed small shipments into the U.S. duty-free.
"A lot of the weaker players are being taken out, which is optimizing the competitive landscape for us to come in and swoop in and take over and help those customers," Tariq says.
By the numbers: Cart's logistics network spans 18 omnichannel facilities, growing from 13 in the past year.
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Exclusive: Embedded tax startup April raises $38M
Exclusive: Embedded tax startup April raises $38M

Axios

time7 hours ago

  • Axios

Exclusive: Embedded tax startup April raises $38M

April, an embedded tax platform, has raised $38 million in a Series B round led by QED Investors, founder Ben Borodach tells Axios exclusively. Why it matters: Embedding tax tools directly into financial apps can improve financial decision-making and boost customer retention. Zoom in: Nyca Partners and Team8 also participated in the Series B round, bringing the total funding April has raised to date to $78 million. How it works: Fintech apps and financial institutions use April's APIs to integrate tax filing and planning directly into their platforms, enabling year-round, real-time tax management. April operates on a SaaS-based model, offering flat-rate pricing to fintech partners, who can choose to mark up services for their end customers. "Our vision is to embed tax in every financial decision," Borodach says. "Taxes should be happening where you're managing your money. They should be happening in real time, and they should be personalized to you." Context: New York-based April operates in a market dominated by legacy tax-preparation giants like Intuit, H&R Block, Thomson Reuters, and Wolters Kluwer. But it recently became the first new company in 15 years to achieve national e-file coverage in all 50 states, Borodach says. The company has also launched a series of new products over the past year, including pro-assisted and pro-led tax filing, quarterly estimate tools for small business owners, and paycheck withholding optimizers. As a result, it is seeing increased demand from wealth management platforms, including integrations with digital advisers catering to mass-affluent clients and an upcoming partnership with a trillion-dollar asset manager. By the numbers: April claims it can reduce the time it takes to prepare and file taxes from the IRS' reported 13‑hour average down to just 22 minutes. The company processed hundreds of thousands of returns through partnerships with over 50 fintech apps and financial institutions this past tax season. It has seen its business grow three times year-to-date and more than seven times over the past 12 months, Borodach says. What's next: The company is preparing to launch advanced tax planning tools around capital gains, retirement planning, and stock transactions.

AI's global race in the dark
AI's global race in the dark

Axios

time10 hours ago

  • Axios

AI's global race in the dark

The U.S.'s great AI race with China, now freshly embraced by President Trump, is a competition in the dark with no clear prize or finish line. Why it matters: Similar "races" of the past — like the nuclear arms race and the space race — have sparked innovation, but victories haven't lasted long or meant much. The big picture: Both Silicon Valley and the U.S. government now agree that we must invest untold billions to build supporting infrastructure for an error-prone, energy-hungry technology with an unproven business model and an unpredictable impact on the economy and jobs. What they're saying:"America is the country that started the AI race. And as president of the United States, I'm here today to declare that America is going to win it," Trump said at a Wednesday event titled "Winning the AI Race." Policy experts and industry leaders who promote the "race" idea argue that the U.S. and China are in a head-to-head competition to win the future of AI by achieving research breakthroughs, establishing the technology's standards and breaking the AGI or "superintelligence" barrier. They suggest that the world faces a binary choice between free, U.S.-developed AI imbued with democratic values or a Chinese alternative that's under the thumb of the Communist Party. Flashback: The last time a scientific race had truly world-shaping consequences was during the Second World War, as the Manhattan Project beat the Nazis to the atomic bomb. But Germany surrendered well before the U.S. had revealed or made use of its discovery. The nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union that followed was a decades-long stalemate that cost fortunes and more than once left the planet teetering on an apocalyptic brink. The 1960s space race was similarly inconclusive. Russia got humanity into space ahead of the U.S., but the U.S. made it to the moon first. Once that leg of the race was over, both countries retreated from further human exploration of space for decades. State of play: With AI, U.S. leaders are once again saying the race is on — but this time the scorecard is even murkier. "Build a bomb before Hitler" or "Put a man on the moon" are comprehensible objectives, but no one is providing similar clarity for the AI competition. The best the industry can say is that we are racing toward AI that's smarter than people. But no two companies or experts have the same definition of "smart" — for humans or AI models. We can't even say with confidence which of any two AI models is "smarter" right now, because we lack good measures and we don't always know or agree on what we want the technology to do. Between the lines: The "beat China" drumbeat is coming largely from inside the industry, which now has a direct line to the White House via Trump's AI adviser, David Sacks. "Whoever ends up winning ends up building the AI rails for the world," OpenAI chief global affairs officer Chris Lehane said at an Axios event in March. Arguing for controls on U.S. chip exports to China earlier this year, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei described competitor DeepSeek as "beholden to an authoritarian government that has committed human rights violations, has behaved aggressively on the world stage, and will be far more unfettered in these actions if they're able to match the U.S. in AI." Yes, but: In the era of the second Trump administration, many Americans view their own government as increasingly authoritarian. With Trump himself getting into the business of dictating the political slant of AI products, it's harder for America's champions to sell U.S. alternatives as more "free." China has been catching up to the U.S. in AI research and development, most tech experts agree. They see the U.S. maintaining a shrinking lead of at most a couple of years and perhaps as little as months. But this edge is largely meaningless, since innovations propagate broadly and quickly in the AI industry. And cultural and language differences mean that the U.S. and its allies will never just switch over to Chinese suppliers even if their AI outruns the U.S. competition. In this, AI is more like social media than like steel, solar panels or other fungible goods. The bottom line: The U.S. and China are both going to have increasingly advanced AI in coming years. The race between them is more a convenient fiction that marshals money and minds than a real conflict with an outcome that matters.

Where Will Ford Motor Company Be in 3 Years?
Where Will Ford Motor Company Be in 3 Years?

Yahoo

time2 days ago

  • Yahoo

Where Will Ford Motor Company Be in 3 Years?

Key Points Ford Motor recently announced stellar sales numbers for the second quarter. Tariffs will likely hurt its financials although the automaker should be able to work through it. Higher sales and higher costs may offset each other, potentially limiting Ford's near-term upside. 10 stocks we like better than Ford Motor Company › The automotive industry has been reeling for months following the Trump administration's announced tariffs, which have threatened to increase costs, likely leading to higher prices for consumers. Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) approached the situation aggressively, marketing to its American roots and offering vehicle buyers employee-level pricing for a three-month period. It worked. Ford recently announced fantastic second-quarter vehicle sales, including an estimated 1.8-percentage-point gain in market share. Now, the company has followed it up with a new promotion aimed at lowering up-front costs for buyers. With Ford building sales momentum, it's fair to ask where the stock might be in three years. I dove into the numbers to find out. Here is what you need to know. Combating tariff headwinds with volume Despite Ford's standing as a leading American vehicle brand, it is a global business, both in supply chain and in sales. The tricky part is figuring out just how tariffs will affect the company, which is remarkably difficult due to the Trump Administration's inconsistent messaging on policy. As of first-quarter earnings, management was anticipating a net headwind of $1.5 billion to Ford's 2025 earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT). It appears that part of Ford's strategy has been to lean into the tariff headwinds as an opportunity to leverage its American identity with U.S. consumers. Ford extended employee-level pricing to buyers as part of its "From America, For America" campaign. The promotion, which ran from early April to early July, was a winner. Ford's vehicle sales skyrocketed by 14.2% in Q2 2025, including: The highest Q2 sales for F-Series trucks since 2019. Record sales for electric vehicles. The highest volume for the Lincoln brand since 2007. 20% growth in paid subscriptions for Ford Pro software. Automotive manufacturers have high fixed costs associated with operating factories. Investors will need to see management's updated financial outlook when Ford releases its full Q2 earnings on July 30. Still, it would prove a savvy move by Ford if the company could grow its sales volume enough to offset tariff-related costs, while boosting market share and giving the Ford brand some momentum in the process. Ford's fundamentals remain resilient Tariffs, in some shape or form, are looming. Analysts have already baked a sizable hit to earnings into Ford's 2025 estimates. The consensus on Wall Street is that earnings will drop from $1.84 per share last year to an estimated $1.12 this year. Beyond the effect on earnings, the important takeaway is that Ford can remain profitable. While investors must read between the lines until Ford releases its Q2 earnings, management probably wouldn't follow its Q2 promotion with another campaign if the company were losing more money selling all those additional vehicles. The dividend, yielding over 5.3%, is still just 54% of 2025 earnings estimates, and management reiterated Ford's balance sheet strength in Q1, which ended with $27 billion in cash and $45 billion in total liquidity. Ford should have ample financial resources to weather the tariff uncertainty, and its decision to pursue market share in this situation underscores that confidence. Where might the stock be in three years? It's worth noting that the auto industry is highly competitive, and companies must continually invest in updating, maintaining, and upgrading expensive factories. Ford is a significant industry player, yet its stock has still badly lagged the broader stock market over time. Therefore, even if Ford successfully navigates the tariff headwinds, it's not guaranteed to yield great investment results. Currently, Ford's free cash flow yield is 20%, on par with its average over the past decade. It's tough to envision the stock fetching a higher valuation while tariffs continue to weigh on the business. The hope is that Ford sells more vehicles at lower margins (due to tariffs) to the point that free cash flow grows. Upcoming Q2 earnings will give investors a fresh set of expectations regarding how tariffs will affect Ford's profits. Keep in mind that Ford's current valuation reflects pre-tariff cash flows. I suspect that Ford will be working back to 2024 profits over the next few years. When it all shakes out, much of the tariff-related costs and higher sales volume could somewhat offset each other. In that scenario, the stock price may not change much. Ford's 5.3% dividend could represent a significant portion of the stock's investment returns. So, for now, it appears that Ford stock has limited upside over the next three years. Of course, that could change as the tariff situation evolves. Should you buy stock in Ford Motor Company right now? Before you buy stock in Ford Motor Company, consider this: The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the for investors to buy now… and Ford Motor Company wasn't one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years. Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $634,627!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you'd have $1,046,799!* Now, it's worth noting Stock Advisor's total average return is 1,037% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 182% for the S&P 500. Don't miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor. See the 10 stocks » *Stock Advisor returns as of July 21, 2025 Justin Pope has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy. Where Will Ford Motor Company Be in 3 Years? was originally published by The Motley Fool Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store