Skrym

About 300 million packages from e-commerce stores were sent in Sweden during 2021. Around 50% of the volume in a package is air, and with some very complex calculations due to vague data, it’s about 1219680m3 that is shipped with only air. About 30.000 trucks would be needed to send this air. Say the distance is between Stockholm-Gothenburg, one truck has about 39kg CO2 for all that air. Can you imagine what a negative impact that has on the environment?

Skrym has developed a headless solution for optimizing logistics with built-in emissions tracking. Their optimization algorithms help online retailers to minimize total shopping costs and emissions. Skrym also provides API-based optimization in real-time to allocate every order to the optimal package. This both minimizes error and enables warehouses to pick items directly into the final package.

“I have worked in warehouses myself, slugging away in the Oslo outskirts to save up money before university. That’s why we’ve built our entire system to fit in with existing flows, rather than forcing a complete remake of how a warehouse works. Because logistics can’t stop. We want to make world-class logistics efficiency and transparency available to every retailer and 3PL, regardless of size, automation and segment.”

Jakob Nordfeldt, founder and CEO at Skrym

So not only is it a way to save on our environment, but the onboarding process is also easy by optimizing the current systems. With Skrym, a normal e-commerce can save about 5-12% on their freight costs, without having to take in more sizes of boxes and packaging. With pressure from the end-consumer in ethics, pricing, and regulation, this is truly gold.

The team

The company started as a student project at the Stockholm School of Economics in collaboration with the Global Challenges Foundation, with the aim of doing something that would contribute to the sustainability goals. The group collaborated with the one of the largest retailers in Sweden, and Jakob realized during the project that more than one tool was needed that could predict the packaging consumption. A whole infrastructure was missing.

“I have a very hard time with waste and was quite annoyed after the project, that no one solved it even though 50% of the package volume sent today consists of air.”

After graduation, Jakob began to circle the root of the problem and learned more about the industry. With money from Vinnova, he was able to hire a team that became Skrym, which was founded in 2020. 

Backers’ perspective

We invested in Skrym because we see how they truly can drive change. Today, roughly 50% of all volume shipped from e-commerce is made up of air. Not only does this entail a significant environmental burden, but it also equates to unnecessary costs for merchants. Skrym’s hashtag is simply #stopsendingair and their software helps merchants and third-party logisticians optimize the choice of packaging and transportation to reduce both costs and emissions.

Overall, an expensive problem for e-commerce players and the growing demand from customers to shop more sustainably drive this change. We have been thoroughly impressed by the team, led by Jakob, as well as their technical capabilities since our first meeting, and we are proud to be backing the full fantastic team in the journey to create a more sustainable world.