Rear View On 2021, Looking Ahead To 2022 | FlavorCloud

The curtain is down on 2021, and a whole new year is opening up. But what a ride the last year has been for ecommerce.  

The highs? Consumer demand has continued to grow at pace. The lows? The dreaded Supply Chain chaos and its impact on shipping. Delays, disruption, and carriers facing real hurdles.  

Online sales boom set to continue

Covid (in its various variants) has played a major role. But even with Omicron emerging just in time for the holidays, consumer demand shows no signs of slowing. Online shopping is set to be bigger than ever for 2022, and overseas shipping will be key to maximizing sales.  

At FlavorCloud, we don’t just have high hopes for the year ahead. We have a clear vision to build on our 2021 successes. Helping even more merchants grow their sales with easy, automated and optimized international shipping, and expanding our already awesome FlavorCloud family with more great people, partners and customers. 

Our 2021 highlights

So, as 2022 gets underway, it’s good to take stock of the progress we’ve made. We’ve experienced huge growth across all areas of our business in 2021, welcoming 4x more customers to FlavorCloud, growing our team 3x, making valuable partnerships, innovating our services and much more. 

In short, we’ve seen our total revenue grow 3x in 2021, not to mention attracting $6.3million Series A funding in recognition of our best-in-class international shipping SaaS platform and FlavorCloud’s potential to scale (big) and grow (fast). And that’s exactly what we’re planning for 2022: aiming for at least 3x growth (again) in 2022.  

Continued Product Innovation in 2022 

In 2021, FlavorCloud continued to innovate and extend our core product offering in a number of areas: 

1. Expanded our Global Carrier network to include outbound for China, the EU, the UK and Canada 
2. Created a compelling API first service across shipping and customs to power headless global logistics for channel partners and 3PLs 
3. Introduced new services to include freight for B2B on the carrier network alongside Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) automation for import customs clearance in the US. 
4. Created VAT and Brexit filing and compliance for merchants selling into the EU and UK. 
5. Honed our conversion optimization engine to automate country specific growth for merchants. 

For 2022, we are fully focused on product and innovation including B2B models, customer analytics and network expansion—listening to customer feedback and executing speedy and seamless updates.  

Growing Our FlavorCloud Family

We’ve also set our sights on doubling our talented team this year, following on from welcoming talented new people in 2021.                                                    

Some of those hires include our new Vice President of Customer Success and Operations, Telved Devlet (and his funky collection of shirts), as well as our first Chief Revenue Officer, Mike Sanchez (who we’re hoping will teach us to salsa when we can all go out dancing again).  

At FlavorCloud, diversity is as important to us as talent, collaboration and agility. Our management team reflects the inclusivity we champion (in race, gender, orientation, ethnicity). We build on core values of integrity and respect, to work collectively towards common goals and create a place where our people are heard and empowered to innovate and take action. BTW, did we mention we’re hiring? 

New strategic partnerships

We’ve also forged new partnerships with leading companies in the cross-border logistics space.  Working with Lian Lian Global, the prominent Chinese tech company, we can disrupt conventional international logistics to allow Chinese merchants to sell to consumers worldwide. We’ve also teamed up with ShipperHQ, the leading shipping rate optimization platform.  

Forbes’ Next 1000 for 2021

Another big highlight last year: seeing Rathna, our CEO and Founder, featured in Forbes’ prestigious ‘Next 1000’ list for 2021, shining a light on entrepreneurs, “who are redefining what it means to build and run a business today”.  

Rathna has also made important contributions to the conversation around international shipping tech and the future of women-led start-ups. If you’d like to hear more, the links are below: 

• Let’s Talk Supply Chain: A LogTech Live podcast, discussing logistics with Eric Johnson  
• A Conversation with Rathna Sharad: for Puget Sound Business Journal’s ‘Resilient Washington’ series.  
• The Future is Female: A TiE Seattle panel discussion about women-led startups and entrepreneurship. 

 Looking forward in 2022 

As far as the future goes, 2022 is shaping up for even greater successes. For our customers, our partners, and FlavorCloud. As Rathna puts it:  

“We’ve grown the FlavorCloud family and have the perfect foundation in place to build massive growth for our customers. We have many exciting updates and plans up our sleeve and I am personally looking forward to our biggest year yet.” 

A big thank you to all of you our customers, our partners and all the FlavorCloud team. For the year just gone and the new one ahead.  

Here’s to enjoying the ride together.