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Locad has raised US$11 million for the expansion of its supply chain platform in its recent Series A fundraising round
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The capital-raising was led by Reefknot Investments, a venture capital fund anchored by Temasek and Kuehne & Nagel
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Locad will use its Series A funding towards building the region’s largest fulfillment network
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The company is adding warehouses, partnering with transport operators, and hiring talent across the region to scale in Southeast Asia and Australia
Logistics and supply chain management integrator Locad has raised US$11 million in Series A funding to expand its supply chain platform.
The round was led by Reefknot Investments, a global venture capital fund that claims “to power high-growth technology-centric start-ups to disrupt, transform and shape the supply chain and logistics industry.”
The fund is anchored by Temasek and logistics powerhouse Kuehne & Nagel, Locad said in a statement.
Locad’s platform, dubbed the logistics engine, syncs inventory across sales channels such as Shopify, Lazada, Shopee, and TikTok Shop. It orchestrates end-to-end order fulfillment for business-to-consumer (B2C) and business-to-business (B2B) orders, from storage to delivery, through a network of warehouses and shipping partners.
To date, Locad said, it has served more than 200 brands across Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Hong Kong, and Australia, and shipped more than 2 million orders while maintaining a 99% same-day order fulfillment rate.
“Ultimately, our goal is to enable a frictionless movement of physical goods and data across the supply chain for any brand and merchant, enabling anyone to sell anywhere, on any sales channel, and deliver seamlessly,” Locad chief executive and co-founder Constantin Robertz said.
“As modern consumer brands are transforming to direct-to-consumer and omnichannel retail, we have seen that the supply chain and fulfillment infrastructure is a key barrier to scaling the business for many brands, and the bar is only rising further, due to higher customer expectations for fast delivery, and the complexity driven by an increasing number of sales channels.”
Committed to democratizing the back-end supply chain of e-commerce, Locad will use its Series A funding towards building the region’s largest fulfillment network. The company is adding warehouses, partnering with transport operators, and hiring talent across the region to scale in Southeast Asia and Australia.
“Over the next five years, we expect to build the region’s largest network of warehouses, enabling next-day delivery in Tier 1 to 3 cities across the region, and make this available to brands and merchants in one integrated platform,” Robertz said.
The series A funding round also saw participation from returning investors Sequoia India and Southeast Asia’s Surge, Febe Ventures, Antler, as well as new investors Access Ventures, JG Summit, and WTI.
“We are excited to partner with Locad to bring holistic end-to-end e-commerce logistics solutions to brands across Asia Pacific,” Reefknot Investments vice president Ervin Lim said.
“Locad’s unique operating model of localizing warehouses into the cities ensures that inventory is kept close to the customers, thereby enabling significant cost and time savings for both brand and consumer. We believe that Locad’s logistics engine will spur greater participation in the digital economy as consumers outside of Tier-1 cities can now receive their orders 2-3x faster at a fraction of the usual cost.”
Locad’s logistics engine provides the backbone to the e-commerce and omnichannel growth of global consumer brands such as Havaianas, Reckitt Benckiser, and Emma Sleep in the region, while expanding access to best-in-class logistics infrastructure to growing direct-to-consumer (D2C) brands and mid-market merchants.
“Success in omnichannel commerce for modern consumer brands requires a powerful supply chain orchestrated by software that seamlessly integrates the infrastructure of warehouses and shipping carriers. And that’s what we’re building here at Locad,” Robertz said.
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