London-based startup Zencargo, a digital freight forwarder for sea, air, and road cargo that allows for online booking, real-time tracking, and provides instant quoting and business analytics on its platform, has raised €18 million in Series A funding.
The round was led by HV Holtzbrinck Ventures, with participation from Tom Stafford, Managing Partner at DST Global, Pentland Ventures, and previous investors Samos, LocalGlobe and Picus Capital.
“Failing to digitise the supply chain is holding back global businesses, with $1.1 trillion left on the table from stock-outs and inventory mistakes,” said Alex Hersham, co-founder and CEO of Zencargo. “Our mission is to change this. Business leaders want increased agility in their supply chain and through our platform we are seeing customers drive cost and working capital improvements in their first few months of adoption by unlocking supply chain insights.”
Zencargo is transforming logistics and supply chain management with software and automation. Founded in 2017, the company’s digital platform has already been adopted by many of Europe’s leading growth businesses, including some with billion-dollar supply chains, and Zencargo has grown sixfold in the last year.
Zencargo’s platform digitises the end-to-end process, surfacing data in moments so supply chain teams can make informed, timely decisions. The startup’s strategy enables businesses to release working capital otherwise tied up in slow-selling inventory, and be more agile, which is a key driver of success in the current era of global uncertainty. A recent study by McKinsey demonstrated that digitising the supply chain delivers the highest ROI of any initiative, growing revenue by 3.2%.
“Getting the right products on the shelf at the right time is a vital concern for most businesses,” added Jan Riethmayer, Zencargo’s co-founder and CTO. “Our technology enables businesses to collaborate in real-time with thousands of suppliers around the world and make informed decisions about their supply chain – from giving a complete consolidation picture to unlocking savings on freight cost and CO2 emissions, optimising load fill, boosting container utilisation, and reducing the amount of energy wasted and emissions created by shipping air around the world.”
In addition to continued investment in its core technology platform, Zencargo will use the latest funding to accelerate the expansion of its recently formed Supply Chain Analytics and Insights group. The team members bring a wealth of experience from leading business transformation at Fortune 500 companies. Their goal is to leverage Zencargo’s proprietary predictive analytics and machine learning technologies to partner with clients and set a standard for excellence across the breadth of the supply chain.
“We’re excited to be working with the Zencargo team,” said Christian Saller, General Partner at HV Holtzbrinck Ventures. “The size of opportunity in this space is enormous and we believe that Zencargo’s approach of bringing automation and a single version of truth to the supply chain will be transformative for customers.”
