April 2026 Investor Update: Sendd

CONFIDENTIAL: +518% MoM GMV Growth, Marketplace Waitlist Doubled in 2 Weeks (All US), $10M+/mo Shopify Sellers Want In 🚀

May 01, 2026

Traction (April 2026)

+517.82% MoM Stripe Connect payment volume: $5,985.82 USD in April vs $968.86 in March
189 successful Connect payments in April (+721.74% MoM vs 23 in March)
$62.92 USD in Sendd net volume (+375.95% MoM vs $13.22 in March)
129 cumulative stores on Sendd.store (+39% MoM, up from 93 in March)
150+ marketplace conversations from the US trip in pipeline: 30+ committed from first call, 100% continued strike rate, on top of 64 existing NZ marketplaces (full story in Summary)
10+ apps and aggregators committed to build on the upcoming Sendd App Store (full story in Summary)
Build Collective + TEDxVUW events: ~$6.3K USD combined GMV across 183 ticket orders (Build Collective complete, TEDxVUW selling into the event this weekend)
~83.7K total Instagram views in April, $0 paid spend (Sendd.store ~49.7K, Adi personal ~25.1K, Sendd.market ~8.9K from a brand new account). Instagram only. TikTok, LinkedIn, YouTube and AI/Google search impressions all growing fast and will start being reported in coming updates.

Summary

+517.82% month-on-month GMV growth. Stripe Connect payment volume went from $968.86 in March to $5,985.82 in April. Successful payments went from 23 to 189 (+721.74% MoM). Sendd’s own revenue grew +375.95% MoM. Bank2Bank volume sits outside Stripe entirely.

We more than doubled our cumulative marketplace pipeline in two weeks, and every single new one is in the US. We went into April with 64 marketplaces on the Sendd.market waitlist, all NZ-grown over the better part of a year. Two weeks of in-person conversations across LA, Phoenix and SF produced 150+ new marketplace conversations, with 30+ already 100% committed from first call and another 60+ asking to be added to the waitlist after meeting at events like Forbes 30 Under 30 and Startup Grind we will be lining up a first proper call with the rest of them in the weeks coming up. The 100% strike rate from every NZ marketplace conversation we’ve had is continuing in the US. That’s a realistic 90+ US marketplaces from a single trip. And this is just the first leg. NY, Texas, NY Tech Week and possibly LA again are all still ahead through late June.

The thesis from day one was that what works in New Zealand should work everywhere. The pain points are universal. The product is international from day one. US demand is validated.

And it’s not just SMBs. I sat down with multiple Shopify sellers doing $10M+/month in GMV on Shopify, expecting pushback and skeptical questions. I got the opposite. “I’ll happily sell on Sendd to get access to your marketplaces, and keep selling on Shopify in parallel until we can migrate our visual frontend to Sendd. Then we can fully move over.” Even sellers at the top of the Shopify ecosystem are ready to jump for marketplace access.

We’ve actually been working on this for a few weeks internally. The conversation just validated why it matters. We’re shipping a Sendd-as-backend product. Sellers will be able to vibe-code their own storefront frontend (Lovable / Replit / Bolt style) that plugs seamlessly into Sendd’s backend: orders, payments, shipping, marketplaces, MCP, all of it. A seller can build a frontend exactly the way they want, branded exactly the way they want, and get every Sendd capability underneath it. You can already see an early example live at v4.sendd.market.

Jenna proved the migration loop in 30 seconds. This morning, on an onboarding call, I watched a new store owner (Jenna, a content creator) use our MCP to shift 20 of her link-in-bio links from hoo.bee to Sendd in 30 seconds. She’s now cancelling her hoo.bee subscription. She’s also planning to spin up three marketplaces: one for her community, one for her following and one for the businesses she works with via her agency. Her words at the end of the call: “I have my Instagram following, so I can check out who has a storefront already and be like, hey, you should transition to Sendd because it’s gonna be way better.”

The Sendd App Store: coming, faster than planned. I wasn’t planning to talk about this yet. But over the trip I met so many app developers, aggregators and tooling builders who wanted access to our network of sellers and marketplaces that we’re now going to prioritize building out a Sendd App Store for Sendd.store and Sendd.market alike. Already 10+ apps and aggregators committed to release on the platform. We’re sharing up to 30% of our revenue with developers who build on Sendd.

A few examples of who’s lining up:

A Shopify app that charges customers $10K+ to optimize their stores for search and AI. Shopify takes 30% of that ($3K). They’re ready to release the same product for free on Sendd in exchange for 30% of our 1% transaction fee: 0.3% per transaction. Our model will be to allow customers decide. Eg if a customer uses a 3rd party app from the Sendd app store, the customer can decide how much of our 1% fee they want to give to that third party app. (Max cumulatively for all apps up o 30% of our 1%.)
A multi-channel inventory sync app (something our secondhand sellers have been asking for repeatedly). They’re happy to deploy on Sendd for free with the rev share, and they’re actively planning to shift GMV from Shopify to Sendd.
A SF-based app that lets fashion sellers scan and add inventory to their own custom app. Today they’re local-only. On Sendd, they can help thousands of sellers list in seconds, spin up their own marketplace to aggregate those sellers and use our shipping integrations to expand from SF to national and international overnight.

The Build Collective event in Auckland. A community of entrepreneurs ran an event and used Sendd.store for ticketing. 100+ people bought tickets. While guests were being scanned in at the door, we shipped real-time improvements to the check-in and entry flow to make the experience smoother. TEDxVUW is the next test, selling actively right now ahead of the event this weekend.

A note on velocity. We’ve only been in market for 3 months. In that time we’ve shipped storefronts, multi-currency payments, Bank2Bank, GoSweetSpot shipping, Sendd.market V1, MCP, Reviews, user admin controls, the marketplace beta program, an event ticketing flow that now runs real events with multiple staff scanning at the door, and we’re about to release our Food & Beverage product type for restaurants. We measure ourselves the way AI companies do: every product type we have, we want to be best-in-class. The way we get there is to release our best bet internally and then iterate as fast as customer data and feedback let us. The events product is the clearest example. What started as a simple ticketing tool now runs events selling thousands of dollars in tickets with multiple staff scanning guests in at the door, the kind of thing enterprises pay thousands per event for, or hand over to large ticketing platforms at obscene cost. Every product cycle improves the functionality, every interconnected experience improves the rest of the ecosystem, every marketplace adds surface area for AI through our MCP, and the whole thing gets stickier and more valuable with each turn.

We’re now actively raising our pre-seed round in May. Investor data room linked above for preview access. The raise funds five concrete shifts:

Take the team to fully full-time. We have a team of 11 today, but only 3 of us are full-time (me + 2 engineers). Even our content team is part-time. The capital takes all 11 to full-time, plus brings Rajib (our most senior engineer) back full-time.
Ship a best-in-class Sendd-as-backend product. Build the Lovable/Replit-style frontend builder for storefronts and marketplaces that plugs directly into our backend.
SOC 2 + ISO compliance. We have multiple enterprise marketplace operators and 12M+ follower influencers asking to deploy on Sendd. They need trust signals. SOC 2 and ISO are key parts of the unlock.
Release the Sendd App Store properly, including a sandbox to test third-party apps safely before they deploy across our network of sellers.
Stand up a full-time US content + BD team. I’ve personally generated 150+ marketplace conversations on this trip. We also have integration conversations open with Square, are actively working on the DoorDash integration now, with Toast on our wishlist and a few others.

Product Updates

What We Shipped

Web-based ticket scanning app. When the Build Collective event hit and Apple was still sitting on our Sendd Events native app in review (more on Apple below), we shipped a web-based ticket scanner in days. It ran the entire Build Collective event without a hiccup. It will run TEDxVUW this weekend.

Real-time check-in and entry improvements at scale. With Build Collective running live and 100+ guests being scanned in at the door, we shipped improvements to the check-in and entry flow as people were being scanned in.

Reviews (LIVE). Shipped this month after two months of “we’re getting it right.” Sellers can now collect and display reviews on their store.

User admin controls (LIVE). Sellers can now invite other people to help manage their store. Built specifically because agencies and content creators kept asking for it. They want to onboard a team member, a VA or a managing agency without sharing a single login.

Sendd MCP upgrades (LIVE). Significant upgrades shipped to the MCP this month, with more enhancements going in before we resubmit to OpenAI’s marketplace. People can already add Sendd MCP today as a custom connector in ChatGPT or Claude.

Sendd.market dashboard and orders section (LIVE). Marketplace operators can now manage their seller approval flow, view orders flowing through their marketplace and see the full curated commerce loop in one place.

Marketplace Beta Program (LIVE). We onboarded our first two marketplaces into a hands-on beta program where we work directly with operators to refine the product. The program now includes 10 marketplaces. We’ll widen access in batches as the next round of improvements lands.

What Moved

Sendd.store dashboard. We found that our MCP was actually working better than building a visual dashboard layer over the same data. Sellers using Sendd MCP can ask any question of their store data conversationally and get richer insight than any static dashboard. We paused the visual dashboard and will revisit if and when MCP adoption alone isn’t enough.

Sendd Events native app. Submitted to Apple. Apple’s review timelines have slowed significantly. We’re still waiting. The web-based scanner means we’re not blocked.

MCP listing on OpenAI marketplace. MCP itself is shipping upgrades constantly. We want a few more cool additions in before we formally resubmit. Pushing the official listing to May.

Enable reviews of Sendd on software review sites like G2. Bandwidth absorbed by the US trip and Build Collective event. We’re getting incredible organic seller messages every week. We just haven’t channeled them into the right platforms yet.

The Good

Maria joined the team on growth and content. Already running point on Sendd.market’s social presence: that account went from zero to 8.9K views and 1,258 accounts reached (+209% growth) in her first couple of weeks. She’s also started supporting Sendd.store and personal content.
Roland joined the team as a part-time engineer. What’s even better: the team found Roland and got him onboarded. I just had to sign his contract. People are stepping up, making calls, and executing as a team without me.
I started creating content for Sendd myself. Daily posting from the US trip, founder journey, marketplace events. 25.1K views and 603 interactions on my personal account in April.
The team shipped a web-based ticket scanner in days when Apple let us down.
Build Collective event was a complete success. Adam and the Build Collective team have been incredible to work with.
TEDxVUW prepped and ready. Everything tested, scanner ready, sellers supported.
Combined ~83.7K Instagram views with $0 paid spend, past our 80K target.

The Bad

April burn was higher than March. US travel (flights, accommodation across LA, Phoenix and SF, ground costs, event tickets) pushed burn well above the ~$20K.
Didn’t enable reviews of Sendd on software review sites. Two months in a row this has been on the goal list and two months in a row it has slipped.
I’m doing too much myself. Founder-as-US-business-development, founder-as-product, founder-as-fundraiser and now founder-as-content-creator, all at the same time. I’ve done all of the investor prep and raise work myself as a solo founder too. The 90 marketplaces I now need to follow up on don’t follow up on themselves. May needs systems that help me execute at the scale we’re now operating at. I might need to hire a whole team of AI agents very soon.

Previous Goals Status (April Targets from March Update)

Sendd.store

130 cumulative stores: Done ✅, landed at 129 (+39% MoM)
Release Sendd.store dashboard: Pivoted, paused in favor of MCP (see What Moved)
Fix MCP linting issues and resubmit to OpenAI: Partial, MCP upgrades shipped, resubmission pending
Release Reviews: Done ✅
Enable reviews of Sendd on software review sites: Not Done
Release user admin controls: Done ✅ (new ship)

Sendd.market

Onboard 2 marketplaces: Done ✅, both in the new Marketplace Beta Program (now 10 marketplaces)
Release Sendd.market dashboard and orders section: Done ✅
75+ marketplaces on waitlist: Done ✅
10+ US marketplace signups: Done ✅, significantly exceeded
Build live marketplaces as use cases: Work in progress

US Expansion

US trip (first leg LA → Phoenix → SF): Done ✅. NY, Texas, NY Tech Week and possibly LA still ahead through late June
10+ US stores onboarded: Work in progress, focus shifted to marketplaces
5+ US marketplace pilot conversations: Done ✅, significantly exceeded
Validate NZ assumptions in US market: Done ✅

Growth & Content

80K+ total views, $0 paid spend: Done ✅, ~83.7K (Instagram only)
Publish and fill full-time content creator role. Maria joined; I also stepped in personally.
Launch educational content series: Work in progress, some videos already live at https://www.youtube.com/@getsendd
US founder journey content: Done ✅

May Goals

Fundraising (Pre-Seed)

Open and run the pre-seed round in the US (some funds are already in DD, more meetings being lined up)
25+ investor meetings with strategically aligned funds and angels
Convert qualified intros into committed cheques

Sendd.store

175+ cumulative stores
Activate first US sellers for Sendd.store in person
Make US shipping live natively
Ship Sendd store frontend generation (V1): first working integration
Ship Food & Beverage product type for restaurants
Sendd App Store (V1 framework): define developer terms, ship rev-share infrastructure, build third-party app sandbox, onboard 3+ committed app developers into closed beta
Resubmit MCP to OpenAI marketplace and Claude
Continue adding more videos to our YouTube help library
TEDxVUW event runs flawlessly (this weekend)

Sendd.market

Add another 5 marketplaces to our beta program from the US
100+ marketplaces on waitlist (cumulative) (potentially already over this number.)
Rapid product cycles on Sendd.market. (Key targets around marketplace discovery & search).

US Expansion (May)

NY (multiple weeks) → Texas (multiple cities) → back to NY for Tech Week
Push the DoorDash integration forward and progress Square conversations

Growth, Content & Team

120K+ total views across all channels, $0 paid spend (Maria leading on Sendd.market and rest of team on Sendd.store, Adi on personal)
Launch educational content series (”How to run a successful X business using Sendd”)
Document the US trip as a case study for future market entries
Restructure team to remove the founder-as-bottleneck on US marketplace follow-ups

Financials

April burn: Higher than March’s ~$20K NZD, driven by US travel (flights, accommodation across LA, Phoenix and SF, ground costs, event tickets). Final number being reconciled.
Runway: Sustainable. Supported via reserves + founder top-up.
Capital raise: Pre-seed round opening in May. Data room linked above for preview.

🎯 The Ask

If you’re an investor (or know one who fits): book a 15-minute call with me.

📅 Book a 15-minute call: https://sendd.store/sendd

🔒 Investor data room (preview): https://docsend.com/view/s/ehcm5tbwth5engve

If you’d rather forward this to someone in your network (seed-stage funds with marketplace, e-commerce or payments DNA, or strategic angels in the creator/SMB commerce space), please do.

Thank you for the continued trust and support.

Adi & The Sendd Team Adi, Dev, Tum, Cyrus, Shawn, Ben, Kenia, Vlad, Maria, Jackie, Roland

PS: Just Sendd it 🚀

Adiraj's Substack

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