Aaron Rubin

Founder and CEO ShipHero

Last Reviewed: September 18, 2026

Executive Summary

Aaron Rubin is the founder and chief executive of ShipHero, a New York-based warehouse management software company used by brands and third-party logistics providers in around 40 countries. He is one of the rare logistics software founders who was a customer first: he spent more than a decade running an e-commerce business out of his own warehouse, built the largest Brazilian jiu-jitsu retailer in the United States, and wrote ShipHero’s original software because the alternatives were either label printers that did nothing for accuracy or enterprise systems that took six months and six figures to deploy. ShipHero now reports powering over $15 billion in annual gross merchandise value and touching roughly one in every 80 US e-commerce packages. In August 2024 the company separated its own fulfilment operations into a distinct 3PL subsidiary, LVK, leaving the parent focused on the software.

Career Highlights

• Founded ShipHero in 2013 and has led it as chief executive throughout.
• Raised $50 million in 2021 in a round led by Riverwood Capital at a $225 million valuation.
• Completed five acquisitions in 2022, including Golden Egg Solutions in Utah, Cargo Cove in Florida and Delivery Net in Ontario, growing the warehouse footprint to 1.1 million square feet.
• Spun ShipHero’s fulfilment operations out in August 2024 as LVK, an independent third-party logistics business led by CEO Maggie Barnett with seven North American warehouses.
• Built Zengu into the largest Brazilian jiu-jitsu retail business in the United States, home to the 93 Brand and BJJHQ brands.
• Rebuilt that business to roughly $1 million in annual profit after the 2008 financial crisis nearly destroyed it.
• Regularly quoted on warehousing and supply chain by the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, the New York Times and NPR, and by Wired in 2025 on tariff policy’s effect on e-commerce.

Professional Journey

Rubin started writing code at eleven, building an online text-based game with a friend named Yosef, and started making money on the internet as a teenager. While in college he co-founded a karate equipment e-commerce business built on open-source software, and grew it into the leader of that niche. He then moved the company toward Brazilian jiu-jitsu apparel, spending years on garment design, factory relationships and sourcing, and built it into the largest BJJ seller in the country under the Zengu umbrella with brands including 93 Brand and BJJHQ.

The business almost did not survive 2008. Revenue fell from $6.3 million to $4 million in the financial crisis, and in the course of that collapse Rubin discovered the company’s financials had been wrong: it was in fact unprofitable and carrying substantial hidden debt. His father mortgaged his house to lend him $350,000, which let him buy out his partner and take on the debt himself. He rebuilt over several years, partly by copying the one-deal-a-day model popularised by Steep and Cheap, and by the year before he moved on the business was making roughly $1 million in annual profit.

ShipHero came out of that warehouse. Rubin and Yosef — both programmers, and friends since they were eleven — had built their own warehouse management system because commercial options were priced out of reach for a business their size. Their first outside customer was a friend running Wine Chateau. Rubin founded ShipHero formally in 2013, positioning it explicitly against the two unsatisfactory alternatives he had lived with: cheap label-printing tools that did not drive efficiency or accuracy, and legacy enterprise systems requiring six months of customisation and more than $100,000 to deploy.

Growth accelerated in the early 2020s. A $50 million round led by Riverwood Capital in 2021 valued the company at $225 million. During 2022 ShipHero made five acquisitions — among them Golden Egg Solutions in Utah, Cargo Cove in Florida and Delivery Net in Ontario, which added 250,000 square feet around Toronto — taking its warehouse footprint to 1.1 million square feet and building out an in-house fulfilment arm alongside the software business.

In August 2024 Rubin separated the two. The fulfilment operations became LVK, an independent third-party logistics subsidiary with its own chief executive, Maggie Barnett, running seven warehouses across North America, while the New York parent continued developing cloud warehouse management software covering order management, mobile-enabled warehouse workflows and inventory reporting. Rubin has become a frequently quoted industry voice on warehousing, fulfilment economics and, more recently, the effect of tariff policy on e-commerce.

Education

No education could be established. Rubin has said he co-founded his first e-commerce business while in college, which confirms he attended, but no institution, degree or field appears in the company’s own materials, in Wikipedia’s ShipHero article, in Crunchbase or in long-form interviews with him.