Paxafe, a Milwaukee, Winconsin-based startup that uses AI and machine learning for the classification and contextualization of supply chain data, made an announcement concerning the funding of $2.25 million. The funds will be channeled for the development of its AI technology and also to support the rollout of its platform.
The seed round was led by Ubiquity Ventures, raising the company’s total funding to over $3 million.
A lack of transparency and visibility in supply chains has always been a reason for major losses and functional inefficiencies. However, with an overflow of data, the situation has taken an opposite turn these days. This availability of data does not always ensure smart and efficient decisions because of the lack of structure and context.
Improved Visibility
Paxafe aims address the blindspots and lack of transparency with its platform designed to facilitate predictive routing, arrival time estimation, and prediction of adverse events for B2B shipments. With the help of a combination of sensors modeling, the company provides the status of goods whether they are transported by ocean cargo, air freight, or parcel.This will be of substantial help in giving pricing and insurance coverage for shipments. The sensor data is automatically converted into contextual insights and alerts are generated in case a shipment faces deviations that can prove to be harmful.
In contrast to the current solutions which alert the stakeholders only after the calamity has occurred, the platform will provide alerts and a clear diagnosis of the problem, the ‘how’ and ‘why’ concerning it. This will be of remarkable help in building prediction models that are accurate and consistent and which will help in risk mitigation.
Pandemic-driven challenges
The pandemic has hit almost all industries, sidetracking their growth and progress. The challenges concerning supply chain has also been amplified due to the pandemic situation. The accuracy of inventory has been reduced to just 63% in retail. However, stakeholders with better supply chain visibility are able to grow despite the competition. Accordung to the estimates of the Logistics Bureau, companies with superior visibility achieve better revenue growth in comparison to those without the same.
According to Ilya Preston, co-founder and CEO,
“The pandemic has only reinforced the demand for technology visibility platforms like ours, given the pandemic’s impact on various supply chains- from product integrity and temperature control requirements for the vaccine itself to all of the lead time increases and delays that are impacting customer inventories, product availability, and time of arrival.”
