Global e-commerce returns consume up to 30% of revenue, with cross-border duties and taxes complicating shipments, demand shifts catching inventory off guard, and fragmented software leaving profits vulnerable. Swap steps in with a single operating system that pulls returns handling, international shipping, demand predictions powered by AI, tax processing, and payments into one easy dashboard.
Brands using it hold onto 12% more cash and see sales jump 111% year over year, as seen with shops like The Frankie Shop and Pangaia.
Fresh off a $40 million Series B from ICONIQ six months ago, Swap just raised $100 million Series C, co-led by DST Global and ICONIQ. Having evolved from its early days as a returns-focused platform, Swap expanded into cross-border last year, laying the groundwork for an AI commerce infrastructure that allows agents to transact, recommend, and process payments across merchants globally.
Building the central system every brand relies on
Sam Atkinson and Zach Bailet started Swap in 2022 after their online store, Slow Goods, failed. They tried to bring handmade crafts from Africa to the UK and beyond, only to be hit by duty fees, fragmented shipping carriers, and return headaches no one tool could fix.
Together, they set out to help mid-sized brands from $5 million to $100 million in sales operate anywhere in the world, guess customer needs ahead of time, and close more deals without big-company hassles.
Swap runs on smart AI that works on its own to streamline business: it locks in exact import costs upfront as the official importer, refunds taxes automatically on returns, predicts stock needs to avoid shortages, and offers virtual fitting rooms that lift sales by 65% and trim returns.
Atkinson explains to TFN, “Swap is built as an agentic commerce operating system — not another point tool. What sets our technology apart is that we’ve designed Swap to orchestrate the full operational stack behind modern ecommerce, with shared data, shared workflows, and AI-native automation across modules.”
What sets it apart is stitching everything together, built right into Shopify for 30% better margins and near-perfect customer stickiness, minus the steep prices or bad service elsewhere.
“Most solutions on the market address only one slice of the problem — returns, shipping, tax, protection, or planning — and brands end up stitching together vendors, reconciling data across systems, and manually managing gaps. Swap replaces that patchwork with an integrated OS that connects the pieces that actually depend on each other,” Atkinson elaborates.
Unlike Aftership, Loop, and Redo, Swap runs the whole show from start to finish.
What’s next?
The funding sends Swap racing into markets outside the US, EU, Australia, and Canada, targeting niches such as beauty products, home items, and gadgets that lack strong options.
TFN contacted Swap for comment regarding diversity and inclusion; no response was received at the time of publication.
