Former Continuum CEO Michael George is assisting private equity firm Summit Partners with portfolio company VeriShip's business acceleration. The move comes a few weeks after ConnectWise acquired Continuum as part of an expansion play in the MSP software and business automation market.A report from Kansas City says George is running VeriShip. But I suspect some context is needed. If I had to guess, George is likely helping Summit Partners to fine tune and further accelerate that business in the near-term, before contemplating his own long-term next move in the business market.George and Summit Partners have a strong relationship that stretches back to 2011, and the successful build-out of Continuum.VeriShip develops a SaaS-based shipping expense optimization platform for small and midsize business customers (SMBs). The company recently acquired Valence, a software and managed service company that tracks Amazon’s operational errors for sellers in its Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA) program.The M&A deal blends a software company with managed services -- empowering SMBs with shipping and fulfillment insights across such networks as Amazon, DHS, FedEx and UPS systems, VeriShip says.Describing the overall solution, VeriShip says:
"Valence’s technology taps into Amazon’s Marketplace Web Service API to identify Amazon’s operational errors in handling a seller’s FBA inventory. Then, Valence associates negotiate reimbursements owed. Similarly, VeriShip combines its industry-leading technology – a cloud-based parcel analytics platform that aggregates and audits data on 70 million packages shipped annually through DHL, FedEx and UPS – with expert data scientists to recover refunds for small and mid-sized businesses. Its data scientists further analyze and compare data to optimize the shipping environment and prevent future overcharges and inaccuracies through carrier contract engineering and predictive analytics."
