package.ai

Ziv Fossey had spent a decade building communication software at Microsoft, Skype, and a Zoom competitor called Fuse. But it took a personal frustration to spark his next venture. In Silicon Valley, a UPS delivery person mishandled his computer delivery, and the experience crystallized a realization: the problem wasn't logistics—it was communication. "Chatbots were kind of taking off," Ziv recalls, and he saw the opportunity to apply conversational AI to the broken last-mile delivery experience. In 2017, after moving his family back to Israel, he and his co-founder Joav (the CTO) decided to build package.ai.

Ziv and Joav started lean. They raised a $700K pre-seed round in 2017 at a $1-1.5M pre-money valuation, with support from Nielsen Innovate, an Israeli government-backed incubator that became a major shareholder. The team—now split between 7 engineers in Israel and 3 in the US—focused entirely on R&D. Rather than chasing the broad delivery market (Uber Eats, DoorDash), they narrowed their focus to a specific, underserved vertical: home furniture and appliance delivery, where last-mile logistics are genuinely complex (moving sofas and dishwashers into homes requires real coordination).

The product evolved into a two-pronged offering: delivery management software for routing and operations, plus a conversational AI chatbot interface for customers. A consumer ordering a TV from Spencer's could now message the delivery operation in real-time, make changes, and get automatic responses—reducing the "micro stress" around coordinated deliveries.

Ziv's first big break came from sheer persistence. He and Ralph Schulberg, their head of sales, ran a cold email campaign targeting furniture and appliance delivery companies across North America. Two early customers stuck: a furniture retailer in Australia (Sydney and Melbourne) who believed in the vision early, and Stella Delivery in New Jersey, who "just took a chance on us" despite the immature platform. That willingness to work with early-stage products became a pattern—cold email still worked, but only because they were genuinely solving a real problem.

Package.ai's pricing model proved elegant: they charge per delivery vehicle (a proxy for order volume) plus fees for review generation by location. The sweet spot landed at $60K ACV annually. By the time of this interview, they had over 24 customers across North America, generating roughly $120K in monthly revenue—up from $50K just a year prior. That's 2X year-over-year growth.

The real magic was in the metrics: zero churn. No customer had ever left. They'd generated over 10,000 reviews with "engagement rates through the roof." Ziv credits the core insight: turning a logistics headache into a marketing engine. Retailers loved repeat sales and glowing reviews from delivery experiences that felt less chaotic.

The company stayed focused on what it didn't do: they didn't source drivers, didn't try to be a marketplace. They managed operations and communication. Around 1,000 drivers now operate on the platform.

With $3M raised to date (pre-seed + seed rounds) and over $1.4M in ARR, Ziv is gearing up for a Series A—targeting $5-10M at a 30-40X revenue multiple ($40-50M pre-money valuation). At 46, married with three kids, and sleeping 5-6 hours a night, Ziv is looking for the right partner, whether in Israel or the US. The traction speaks for itself: furniture and appliance delivery at scale, zero churn, and a product that was born from genuine frustration and solved a real market gap.