The company that decided the sale isn't over at checkout. AfterShip runs the post-purchase layer of ecommerce - tracking, notifications, returns and delivery prediction - for tens of thousands of online stores.
AfterShip's founders looked at ecommerce and saw a blind spot everyone else had wallpapered over: the anxious stretch between "order confirmed" and "delivered." They built a company inside it.
In 2011, three developers - Teddy Chan, Andrew Chan and Dante Tsang - entered Startup Weekend Hong Kong with a plan to make shipment tracking painless for online retailers. They won that competition, then won the Global Startup Battle the same year. The idea could have stayed a widget. Instead it became one of the quiet load-bearing walls of modern online shopping.
The insight was deceptively simple. Retailers pour enormous effort into the checkout, then hand the customer off to a carrier and go silent. That silence produces the single most common support ticket in ecommerce - "where is my order?", known in the trade as WISMO - and a customer experience that ends on a shrug. AfterShip's bet was that the moment after purchase is not dead time. It is the moment a shopper is paying the most attention.
Shipping notification emails, it turns out, get opened at rates ordinary marketing email can only envy. A tracking page is one of the few pages a customer will voluntarily return to, sometimes several times a day. AfterShip set out to own that attention and hand it back to the retailer, branded and useful, rather than leaving it to a generic courier page.
Fifteen years on, the company is headquartered in Singapore, with teams spread across Austin, Toronto, Columbus, Barcelona, London, Sydney, Shenzhen and New Delhi. It integrates with more than 1,100 carriers and has processed billions of tracked shipments. And it stayed profitable for years before it ever took a large venture check - an unusual trait in a category full of cash-burning peers.
"The sale isn't over when the checkout ends. It's just getting started."
Once an order ships, most brands go dark. Customers refresh courier pages, open support tickets, and lose confidence. AfterShip fills that gap with branded tracking and proactive updates.
Tens of thousands of retailers and marketplaces - small Shopify stores through enterprises like Microsoft, Dell, HP, eBay and Etsy - run their post-purchase flow on AfterShip.
Answering "where is my order?" before it's asked cuts support volume, and turning returns into exchanges keeps revenue that would otherwise walk out the door.
Branded tracking pages and automated notifications across 1,100+ carriers, with an analytics dashboard for on-time performance. The flagship product.
Automates the whole return flow and nudges shoppers toward exchanges or store credit instead of refunds - recovering revenue with AI product suggestions.
AI-predicted delivery dates shown before purchase, right on the product and checkout pages, to cut hesitation and cart abandonment.
Syncs a merchant's catalog, inventory, orders, fulfillment and returns to TikTok Shop and other social-commerce marketplaces automatically.
Lets shoppers insure orders against loss, theft or damage at checkout - a revenue line and a trust signal in one.
The developer layer: multi-carrier tracking, carrier auto-detection and real-time webhook updates that platforms embed into their own apps.
AfterShip runs on recurring SaaS fees, tiered by shipment or order volume with usage-based components. It sells directly to merchants and rides distribution channels like the Shopify App Store, where its tracking, returns and feed apps rank among the most-installed post-purchase tools. Enterprise plans layer on API access, dedicated support and higher limits.
*Third-party estimate; not officially disclosed.
The post-purchase category filled up fast. AfterShip's edge is breadth and carrier depth: it started with tracking data and built outward, so a single vendor covers tracking, returns, prediction and protection rather than one slice.
Alternatives include Narvar, Route, Loop Returns, Returnly (Affirm), ParcelLab, Wonderment, EasyPost and Sendcloud.
Teddy, Andrew and Dante win Startup Weekend Hong Kong and the Global Startup Battle.
AfterShip opens its tracking platform to online retailers.
Ships its tracking API and raises a $1M Series A from IDG Capital.
Adds returns management, turning one feature into a suite.
Tiger Global leads, with GL Ventures, to scale globally.
Launches AfterShip Feed for TikTok Shop.
Earns certification in Canada as the distributed team grows.
Offices: Singapore (HQ), Austin, Toronto, Columbus, Barcelona, London, Sydney, Shenzhen, New Delhi.
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It provides post-purchase software for online retailers: branded shipment tracking, automated delivery notifications, returns and exchanges, AI delivery-date prediction, shipping protection, and marketplace catalog syncing.
It was founded in 2011 in Hong Kong by Teddy Chan (CEO), Andrew Chan and Dante Tsang, after winning Startup Weekend Hong Kong.
AfterShip is headquartered in Singapore, with offices in Austin, Toronto, Columbus, Barcelona, London, Sydney, Shenzhen and New Delhi.
A $1M Series A from IDG Capital in 2014 and a $66M Series B led by Tiger Global Management in April 2021, roughly $68M in total.
Tens of thousands of online retailers and marketplaces, from Shopify small businesses to enterprises like Microsoft, Dell, HP, eBay and Etsy.