Tag: IT|software|supply chain|visibility

E2open Parent Holdings, Inc., the connected supply chain SaaS platform with the largest multi-enterprise network, and Shippeo, a global leader in real-time multimodal transportation visibility, have expanded their partnership to provide clients with a new level of native real-time transportation visibility (RTTV) and supply chain execution management in a unified global platform.

Building on the success of the companies’ strategic partnership announced in 2020, the newly expanded partnership unlocks additional value for clients by combining an unprecedented level of transportation visibility into e2open’s full range of supply chain planning and execution capabilities, for all modes and all geographies.

Beyond simply alerting shippers to a transportation delay, the platform enables users to “peer” inside the truck or container to understand the specific goods being moved, how transportation performance will impact the customer experience, and most importantly, proactively take the best corrective action. This level of control at global scale enables enterprises to improve efficiency, reduce waste, and operate more sustainably across even the most complex global supply chains.

“We are thrilled to take our partnership with Shippeo to the next level to increase value for our clients, with the broadest and deepest real-time transportation visibility made available natively in e2open’s connected supply chain platform,” said Pawan Joshi, executive vice president, products and strategy for e2open.

“Adding Shippeo’s visibility to e2open’s platform is a game-changer for the industry because it allows clients to remove data and decision silos, to drive efficiency and sustainability across the ecosystem of partners as they make, move, and sell products and services. Importantly, this expanded partnership creates shared value for shippers, carriers, and forwarders to foster a healthy, agile, and effective supply chain ecosystem.”

Shippeo’s unique carrier-first approach to real-time multimodal transportation visibility – honouring full compliance with global data management regulations, operating on a strict ‘need to know’ basis, and a commitment against developing freight matching solutions – has made it the RTTV of choice for carriers. This strategy has helped Shippeo earn the highest carrier onboarding satisfaction of 98% and has been the key to rapid expansion across geographies and modes.

In addition, timely access to high-quality data results in higher-fidelity visibility as well as better predictive results, using innovative artificial intelligence and machine learning (AI/ML) algorithms. As a result, Shippeo is the only provider to guarantee ETA accuracy with a formal service-level agreement (SLA).

“Our expanded partnership with e2open offers transformative value to customers who will have not only real-time data and visibility to goods in motion, but also the control to take relevant action on one connected  platform,” said Lucien Besse, chief operating officer and co-founder at Shippeo.

“Our relentless focus on customer experience, carrier satisfaction, and exceptional data quality has helped us carve out a leadership position in the global real-time shipment visibility market. This approach has led us to expand our partnership with e2open. Further combining our in-transit visibility data with e2open’s ability to plan and execute addresses the ‘now what?’ when exceptions occur, while proactively avoiding disruptions before they occur, all from one connected platform.”

Tive, a technology leader in the new era of supply chain and logistics visibility, has closed $54m of Series B funding led by AXA Venture Partners, with participation from Sorenson Capital, Qualcomm Ventures, Fifth Wall, SJF Ventures and Floating Point Ventures as well as the existing investors RRE Ventures, Two Sigma Ventures, NextView Ventures, Hyperplane Ventures, Broom Ventures, and Supply Chain Ventures.

In 2021, Tive grew its revenue over 300%, acquired more than 200 new customers, and expanded its global footprint. This latest investment will fuel Tive’s rapidly growing international presence, with expansion of global sales and marketing initiatives. In addition, it will accelerate the development and introduction of next-generation solutions, services and bring actionable supply chain intelligence and 24/7 monitoring to the market.

Tive says it continues to outpace and out-innovate the competition with the most advanced multi-sensor trackers, a truly intuitive SaaS application, and live 24/7 shipment monitoring service. As one of the leading providers of supply chain tracking technology, Tive has delivered real-time shipment visibility in more than 200 countries, and helped save thousands of shipments from being delayed, damaged, spoiled, or rejected.

Addressing immediate logistics needs

“Tive helps supply chain and logistics professionals bring their customer to the forefront and improve the experience of their deliveries,” said Krenar Komoni (pictured), Founder & CEO of Tive. ​“We empower every shipper and logistics service provider with the best visibility and monitoring tools in the market. We are committed to developing products that create a seamless experience and don’t get in the way of our customer’s daily operations.

“With ongoing dedication from our investors, we continue to innovate and serve our customers while strengthening our position as a global provider of shipment insights that power the next generation of sustainable and efficient supply chains.”

In 2019, Tive founded the Open Visibility Network (OVN) to ensure its vision of a world where everything and everyone is connected becomes a reality. The OVN makes shipment-level data and insights available to mutual customers and its open to all leading technology enabled stakeholders to join. Current OVN members and partners include project44, FourKites, TransVoyant, FarEye, Marine Traffic, Everstream Analytics, and many more.

“Tive has been scaling at an impressive rate, executing decisively on its vision where everything and everyone is connected. Supply chain visibility has become critical in solving large-scale problems in the world today, and Tive has emerged as the global market leader,” said Alex Scherbakovsky, General Partner at AXA Ventures Partners. ​

“The breadth of data Tive offers and ease of access for shippers, logistics providers and carriers are best in class. We believe that Tive’s next-gen solution and highly valuable network will continue to drive massive growth.”

FourKites, the real-time supply chain visibility platform, has launched Slot Manager, its universal time slot booking solution, across Europe. The cloud-based solution helps warehouses, distribution centres and manufacturing facilities collaborate efficiently on pickup and receiving time slots, saving significant time and improving daily operations and partner relationships. In addition, the highly configurable solution allows shippers and carriers to eliminate excess dwell time on site, eliminating detention fees and significantly reducing carbon emissions.

Time slot management is a notoriously time-consuming task for shippers and carriers alike. With  carrier dwell averaging up to 4.35 hours per day, or nearly half of a driver’s time, Slot Manager improves facility productivity and reduces carrier wait time by more than 50%. Highly configurable for personalised requirements, Slot Manager enables shippers and carriers to collaborate in real time, and allows carriers to self-book their preferred time slot based on real-time transit conditions, thereby eliminating hours of daily administrative work and error-prone manual processes.

Slot Manager is an extension of FourKites’ Appointment Manager, launched over two years ago. The solution is now also available in several new Asia-Pacific markets, including Australia, New Zealand and India.

Specifically, Slot Manager offers the following benefits:

• Labour optimisation: Leveraging FourKites’ Dynamic ETA to provide the most accurate times of arrival, teams can better allocate labour and resources based on real-time data and shifts in expected arrival time.
• Ease and compliance with carrier scheduling: Slot Manager creates a single appointment layer accessible to both shippers and carriers to streamline communication and facilitate collaboration. Slots are created by the facility to ensure adherence to preferred scheduling, business rules and specific commodity requirements.
• True end-to-end visibility: Powered by real-time supply chain visibility data from FourKites, Slot Manager extends visibility even further into the facility via one streamlined interface. With FourKites, stakeholders receive a comprehensive end-to-end view of shipments from point of origin to predictive insights that help orchestrate activities in the facility.
• Diminished carrier detention costs: With optimised scheduling, carrier dwell on site can be virtually eliminated, helping shippers avoid detention fees and fines for truck queues on public roads.
• Reduced carbon emissions: Scheduling and operational efficiencies driven by Slot Manager reduce time carriers spend in the yard by up to 50%, cutting carbon dioxide emissions by an average of 54%.

“We are excited to introduce the easiest, most flexible slot booking application on the market,” said Mathew Elenjickal, FourKites Founder and CEO. “This groundbreaking solution helps shippers across the globe optimise end-to-end visibility, efficiency and sustainability, as well as adapt quickly as their business needs change. We’re thrilled to be launching Slot Manager in Europe, specifically tailored to the needs of local facilities.”

In addition, FourKites has partnered with French transportation solutions firm IER, a Blue Systems entity (Bolloré Group), to facilitate integrated implementation in Europe, driving greater efficiency for both carriers and facilities. The partnership combines IER’s leading standard of facility hardware technology with facility processes for automated check-in and check-out. When combined with FourKites’ advanced data capture and processing capabilities, the companies’ combined pre-configured integration offers a fast, turnkey facility solution for customers.

“We chose to partner with FourKites due to their globally recognised data quality and their commitment to delivering that data back to customers with actionable insights,” said Christophe Levy, Chief Executive Officer of IER’s Track & Trace Unit. “By combining FourKites’ advanced supply chain intelligence capabilities with our leading facility hardware capabilities, we offer a seamlessly integrated solution that helps customers achieve immediate results for their business.”

 

Forto, a leading provider of digitised freight forwarding and supply chain solutions, has raised $250m in a pre-emptive Series D investment round led by Disruptive. Also participating in the round are existing investors including Softbank Vision Fund 2, G Squared, Northzone, Unbound, and A.P. Moeller Holding. The current round places the company valuation at $2.1bn.

According to Forto CEO and Co-Founder Michael Wax, this earlier-than-anticipated investment will further advance the company’s plans to enhance its offering for customers on a global scale. “We recognise that this is an exceptionally challenging period for many of our customers. As our business remains well-funded from our previous round in 2021, this new round will simply allow us to accelerate the execution of our existing strategy, particularly on our geographic expansion,” commented Wax.

“It will allow us to further widen our customer offer, bring our technology platform support to customers in new markets, and capitalise on new opportunities as they arise.”

The latest investment comes just eight months after a June 2021 announcement of a $240m investment round led by Softbank Vision Fund 2. The new funding builds upon the company’s significant financial position, with the total investment raised over $600m to date. This fresh commitment from both new and existing investors serves as a clear validation of the company’s vision, robust business model, and successful strategy, which are all focused on building better logistics and supply chain experiences.

Forto is using its digital platform to simplify interactions, remove process friction, and increase visibility around the supply chain — in turn empowering customers to make smarter commercial decisions. It strives to make the movement of goods around the globe simpler and more certain, while simultaneously helping the logistics industry become more sustainable.

Disruptive, a leading technology investment firm based in the United States (Austin, TX), explained the opportunity it sees in Forto: “the last few years have presented significant challenges and well-publicised uncertainty around the worldwide movement of goods. They have clearly highlighted the need for further visibility and control across the supply chain, and for Forto’s transformative solutions,” commented Alex Davis, CEO of Disruptive.

“Forto has significant potential to drive real change and improve global logistics experiences for customers across industries and touching all sectors of the shipping industry.”

Forto has a worldwide presence with offices across Germany and Asia (including Shanghai, Ningbo, Shenzhen, Singapore and Hong Kong). In 2021, the company expanded its European presence with offices in Copenhagen and Aarhus in Denmark, Madrid in Spain, Rotterdam in the Netherlands. It also opened an office in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. In 2022, Forto plans to further expand its footprint to customers in Poland, Belgium, Sweden and southern Europe.

Forto will continue to grow the company, with the addition of further industry-leading expertise in technology and logistics and the expansion of the senior leadership team to underpin this growth. In addition to the appointment of logistics industry experts to lead its regional expansion efforts, Forto recently appointed Jochen Freese, formerly Chief Commercial and Marketing Officer for CEVA Logistics, as Executive Vice President of Procurement and Business Development.

The company will also continue to advance its work to make global trade more sustainable. It aims to make climate action easy for customers, which starts with visibility on emissions and information that empowers them to make impactful data-based decisions. The goal is for sustainable choices to become the default.

The transaction remains subject to statutory closing conditions and is expected to conclude in the next few weeks.