Pioneering “micro-fulfillment” company Fabric, which has been something of a darling among investors, just passed an important milestone with a valuation that exceeds a billion dollars. The company uses robots and geographically strategic fulfillment centers to get products to customers in a hurry, as quickly as one-hour after an e-commerce order is made.

Is the company the future of fulfillment in a world that previously has been dominated by Amazon? Investors certainly seem to think so. The company has netted a whopping $336 million in total funding on the promise of democratizing fast fulfillment.

The reason for the investor enthusiasm is readily apparent. This year saw e-commerce sales penetration more than double to 35%, fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic’s acceleration of existing online shopping trends. The same-day delivery market in the US is poised to grow by $9.82 billion over the next four years. Meanwhile, supply chain catastrophes and strained fulfillment capacity has created a bottleneck. Fabric thinks it can solve the problem with a fully integrated micro-fulfillment process powered by AI and robots.

Source: What this billion-dollar “robocorn” says about e-commerce | ZDNet