3PL Central Picks Up $17.5 Million from Mainsail

3PL Central, a leading provider of warehouse management software (WMS), announced that it has received a $17.5M investment from Mainsail Partners.

3PL Central serves third party logistics providers (3PLs) and private warehouse managers by delivering the most powerful – and the most affordable – WMS available through the cloud.

Mainsail Partners is a growth equity firm focused on growing, bootstrapped companies.

The growth capital will be used to accelerate 3PL Central’s product development and innovation, expand and enhance its client services, and scale its sales and marketing team.

“We are excited to embark on this next phase in our company’s history,” said John Watkins, CEO of 3PL Central.

“A great deal of consideration and care went into the timing and selection of our partner, and more than ever, our customers will benefit from 3PL Central’s comprehensive SaaS warehouse management platform, particularly those customers serving the eCommerce market”

John Watkins and Nancy Rohman co-founded 3PL Central in 2006 while running their own 3PL warehouse. When they could not find an adequate web-based WMS to manage their inventory and operations, they built their own, and 3PL Central was born.

“We believe 3PL Central is well positioned to benefit from eCommerce trends”Jason Payne, Founding Partner at Mainsail Partners

3PL Central’s SaaS WMS now has tens of thousands of users across a growing number of 3PL and private warehouse customers worldwide.

Collectively, 3PL Central’s fulfillment customers experienced a 91% year-over-year increase in shipment volume for the 2015 Black Friday to Cyber Monday holiday shopping season.

“Like many of Mainsail’s portfolio company executives, John and Nancy started as users of their own product,” explained Stephen Wolfe, a Partner at Mainsail Partners.

“By definition, this means the company and product were purpose-built to solve real problems for real customers.”

“We are thrilled to invest alongside John and Nancy to help them accelerate the growth of their business. We believe that eCommerce is driving supply chain complexity and the need for sophisticated, but affordable, warehouse management solutions,” said Jason Payne, Founding Partner at Mainsail Partners.

“We believe 3PL Central is well positioned to benefit from eCommerce trends.”

Jason Payne and Stephen Wolfe will join the Board.

D.A. Davidson & Co. served as the exclusive financial advisor to 3PL Central.