Munich Startup: What does your startup do? What problem do you solve?
Alaiko: In rapidly scaling e-commerce stores, operations and customer service often face the greatest challenges. The answer to growing order volumes and increasing process complexity is usually more staff in the relevant departments. This is where Alaiko comes in. Our mission is to solve these problems by revolutionizing e-commerce logistics for fast-growing brands.
Munich Startup: But that's been around for a long time!
Alaiko: While traditional fulfillment providers only handle the logistics of an online shop, Alaiko offers a holistic, modern approach. First, there is a fulfillment network that impresses with unlimited growth opportunities, state-of-the-art warehousing, and the fastest delivery times. In combination with Alaiko's Logistics Operating System, which enables comprehensive operations management and automation, we offer logistics performance at the highest level. In addition, customers of DTC brands (Note d. Editorial: Direct-to-Consumer) are always proactively informed about the status of their orders – even during shipping – and can manage them independently, which in turn significantly reduces the workload for the customer service team. Thanks to Alaiko, online stores can not only grow more efficiently but also offer an excellent shopping experience, which sets them apart from the competition in the competitive e-commerce market.
Munich Startup: What is your founding story?
Alaiko: Our founders, Moritz Weisbrodt and Gabriel Thomalla, have known each other since their studies and have successfully built various companies together in the past. After founding Kaia Health, an internationally successful e-health startup, they experienced the logistical challenges of growing e-commerce companies with their first DTC brand. This led to the decision to found Alaiko in April 2020 and build a solution that will help many other shops.
Alaiko plans international expansion
Munich Startup: What have been your biggest challenges so far?
Alaiko: The first challenge was finding the right logistics partners to build Alaiko's fulfillment network. Only warehouses with the appropriate digital capabilities and the necessary service level to meet all the needs of successful e-commerce brands were considered.
In addition, Alaiko was founded at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic. This meant that many employees had to start working remotely. Despite this, in March 2021, we were able to move into our beautiful new office at Stiglmaierplatz and catch up on many well-deserved team events.
Finally, we have very ambitious goals: We want to further develop the Alaiko platform, expand internationally, and further expand our network of logistics partners. This naturally means we're constantly looking for top talent to support us!
Munich Startup: How are things going?
Alaiko: In April 2020, we launched Alaiko at a time when the e-commerce market was beginning to benefit from the coronavirus crisis. We felt this directly, and some of our first customers, such as Wingguard (the face mask worn in public by current Health Minister Karl Lauterbach), really took off. This was a stress test for us to demonstrate that our solution perfectly enables order peaks and thus scalable growth. We now support over 150 e-commerce brands and, with the help of our Series A funding of $30 million, continue to grow strongly.
“Munich was the perfect location for our founding”
Munich Startup: How have you experienced Munich as a startup location so far?
Alaiko: Munich was the perfect location for our founding. It boasts an excellent network, especially in the B2B environment, and a first-class talent pool thanks to its universities. Furthermore, the city offers such a high quality of life that we were able to convince numerous employees from other cities to relocate for Alaiko or at least visit regularly.
Munich Startup: Hidden champion or shooting star?
Alaiko: So far, we have deliberately been operating somewhat “under the radar.” On the one hand, in order to Alaiko platform To work with our customers to perfectly adapt to the needs of e-commerce brands. On the other hand, to build a team and create the necessary structures to enable our desired growth. Our Series A has naturally brought us more into the public eye. Despite all of this, however, we remain fully committed to developing new solutions in e-commerce logistics and our sustainable growth.
