Parcel delivery provider Pandion is shutting down amid a difficult funding environment and a challenging market, founder and CEO Scott Ruffin announced Friday.
The Bellevue, Washington-based company determined it needed to close immediately due to obligations to lenders, Ruffin said. Conversations with investors and potential acquirers "have run their course without a favorable outcome," he added.
"We've already cancelled inbound packages and will have no further pickups," Ruffin said. "For the minimal packages remaining at our facilities, we'll have one last simplified dispatch to the postal service."
Friday was Pandion's last day of operations. Jan. 15 will be the final day of employment for Pandion workers, with their last paycheck arriving that day. No severance will be provided as "we owe more than we have in the bank," Ruffin said.
The closure comes after Pandion announced a $41.5-million funding round last March to grow its network, boost delivery speeds and build new technology offerings.
The company, which Ruffin said delivered more than 100,000 packages daily, offered one- to five-day ground shipping speeds by leveraging five sortation centers and a mix of last-mile carrier partners. Ruffin told Supply Chain Dive last year that Pandion used the U.S. Postal Service, regional parcel carriers and gig economy delivery companies to complete shipments.
Pandion debuted when delivery providers couldn't grow fast enough to meet pandemic-fueled demand, leading to capacity constraints and shippers scrambling for alternatives. But the market has cooled off since then, with Point Pickup and Maergo ceasing operations last year.
"In our case, we entered the market at a challenging time, and we needed more runway to scale, but the shift in funding availability and the US small parcel market has limited our chance to continue to grow," Ruffin said.
