Sendle, the $100M carbon-neutral courier, wound down after a faulty US merger

Sendle, the Australian shipping startup founded in 2014 by former CSIRO executive James Chin Moody, built its name as 'Australia's first 100% carbon neutral shipping service' — an asset-light platform that bought courier capacity at volume and resold it cheaper than Australia Post to small online retailers, gaining prominence during Covid among Shopify and Etsy sellers. Over a decade it raised at least US$70 million from investors including Afterpay-linked Touch Ventures and Federation, and expanded into North America.

The end came through a merger. The previous year, Federation backed combining Sendle with two US companies — ACI Logistix and FirstMile — into a fresh California-based entity called FastGroup. Five months later, FastGroup's website linked to nothing. Federation said it had emerged that ACI Logistix 'was not current on its financial obligations at the time of the merger, contrary to representations made to Federation during the due diligence process,' and that strained supplier relationships from missed payments were hurting the merged entity's performance.

On January 10, 2026, the FastGroup board resolved to wind down the company. The next day, customers received an abrupt email halting all bookings 'effective immediately' — parcels out for delivery stuck in limbo, customers charged for labels they couldn't use, and no way to reach support. Touch Ventures had already written its Sendle investment to nil in December. Australian staff lost their jobs the same weekend, and about 80 Philippine call-centre workers face redundancy.

At least US$70 million raised over a decade written toward nil; Touch Ventures marked its stake to zero; staff in Australia and the Philippines cut.

The merged entity's operating performance was hit by 'strained supplier relationships arising from non-compliance with payment obligations' at ACI Logistix.

Federation says ACI Logistix misrepresented its financial standing during due diligence — it was not current on its obligations at merger time.

Sendle's investors had already been diluted; Touch Ventures wrote its stake to nil in December, years after its last cash injection in 2023.

Merging into a new entity on a partner's numbers is only as good as the due diligence: cooked books surface as supplier debts within months.

Staff were paid on time and given redundancy notices, and ZigZag Offshoring said its 80 Philippine call-centre workers would receive entitlements under local law. Federation is pursuing recoveries for investors, calling the amount and timing uncertain. The ABC could not reach founding CEO James Chin Moody or the heads of the merged entity.