www.forbes.com/2009/03/20/earth-class-mail-technology-ecotech09-mail.html
For a frequent traveler like David Recordon, sorting through piles of mail after he returned from trips was always a hassle, not to mention an environmental challenge. So, the blogger and entrepreneur signed up with Earth Class Mail six months ago and now receives his mail electronically. "Now I am connected to my mail no matter where I am," Recordon says. Seattle-based Earth Class Mail scans all the envelopes you receive and sends the images to your online account. You view the images and then tell Earth Class Mail which envelopes to shred, recycle, archive or send to you. "Seventy-five percent of our mail never leaves the premises, except as fiber going to be recycled or shredded," says founder and Chief Executive Ron Wiener.
By 2006, Earth Class Mail had developed and patented a technology that could sort millions of pieces of mail a day. "No other players have the automation, security and confidentiality assurance systems we've developed," Wiener says. Today, Earth Class Mail has nearly 30,000 customers in 175 countries. Since 2006, the company has raised $21 million from venture capitalists, angel investors and debt financing, but it hasn't turned a profit yet. We've been seeing revenue growing from quarter to quarter," says Wiener, who declined to disclose revenue figures. To become profitable, Earth Class Mail is shifting its focus from being a consumer retail business to being a platform solution provider for postal services that license the company's mail-sorting technology. Earth Class Mail is in talks with major parcel operators and postal offices to sell its four retail stores and its football stadium-sized mail sorting facility. Earth Class Mail's first licensing deal was with Swiss Post earlier this year.
Comment On This Story Licensing Earth Class Mail's technology "is much cheaper than developing our own," says Benoit Stroelin, who heads the Swiss Post Box Project. "The software offers people a lot of choices and the most important one is asking people if they want their mail opened. There is a good chance they will sell the software to other posts as well." Earth Class Mail is now looking to dovetail its know-how and technology with a domestic postal brand. The US Postal Service, which abandoned its own electronic mail delivery service, says it is keeping an eye on Earth Class Mail. Struggling with a decline in mail volume, the USPS ended it first quarter with a net loss of $384 million and reported a 10% decline in mail in its December quarter. Says postal industry consultant Douglas Caldwell, "Their business is a unique combination of e-commerce and software that can integrate with hard copies, and it's very scalable."
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