Volume 2. How transparent are you?
Hi! This is a bi-weekly newsletter of everything interesting in Supply Chain from Shenzhen to San Francisco. Every edition we'll be meeting with someone enabling your Supply Chain to run harder, better, faster, stronger. You'll also hear about recent, compelling partnerships between corporates and startups, and the latest funding rounds from interesting startups. Subscribe below to work it, make it, do it.
Corporates ❤ Startups
In this segment, we dive into recent partnerships and developments in the Supply Chain ecosystem. This volume we focus on two startups bringing additional transparency to global supply chains.
FourKites (US), a multi-modal supply chain visibility platform, has built on its existing partnership with Constellation Brands, landing the company's Mexican operations.
Why does it matter? FourKites will provide real-time shipment location data and arrival time predictions for Constellation Brands' spirits shipments moving from supplier locations to Constellation production facilities. In our last edition, we talked about The Amazon Effect and how consumers expect convenient and timely deliveries. It’s no surprise, then, that B2B customers also expect the same customer service and dynamic ETAs across their supply chain.
How does it work? FourKites onboards a shipper's network of carriers, and provides them with GPS-connected devices to provide a Control Tower view of their shipping activity. The company benefits from amazing network effects; each additional carrier it onboards to the platform creates more value through more data, which means better predictions and collaboration across supply chains. For example, shippers can now collaborate to reduce empty backhaul miles across their lanes - a win-win for them, and the environment.
LocatorX (US), a track and trace solution startup, was selected by the Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) to develop an automated inventory management system.
Why does it matter? From agriculture to medical supplies, our chase to minimize costs and maximize efficiency has led global supply chains to become fragmented and opaque. LocatorX will help the DLA manage its complex portfolio of global inventories in real-time - important when you run the supply chain for the Army, Marine Corps, and Navy, and the average product changes hands eight times! Transparency is here to stay, and our ability to understand data once this information is visible will provide a new wave of insights and efficiency improvements.
How does it work? LocatorX has patented solid-state, battery-free, miniature atomic clock technology (precise to 1 one-billionth of a second) to track shipments within a foot of accuracy. LocatorX's chips rely on beams from cell towers, so they can be found inside of buildings, and in any weather, two conditions where GPS performance suffers. Movement, time, and distance are tracked on a blockchain to provide a complete record or "chain of trust" from the source to the end-user.
Building custom AMRs with Fetch Robotics ⚙
We talked to Barry Phillips, the Chief Marketing Officer at Fetch Robotics. Fetch Robotics has one of the largest portfolios of AMRs available and a drag-and-drop development environment that integrates with leading WES and WMS providers. Read on to learn more about deploying disinfecting AMRs from home, and how Fetch stands out in a crowded AMR market. #warehouseautomation #AMR
FORGE: Hi Barry! We've been trying (and failing) to bake sourdough bread at home, but it sounds like you've had a very busy summer.
Fetch provides AMRs to the government, pharmaceutical manufacturers, essential manufacturers, and fulfillment/distribution centers, so we still have Fetchers developing, testing, and building AMRs. We have a backlog of orders, especially with the need for autonomous disinfection, so there is no rest for the weary.
How did the team adapt to the new COVID-19 operating restrictions?
COVID-19 has really proven out the advantages of our platform approach. Because of our cloud-based software, we’ve always had the ability to do remote deployments, but never had the need. COVID-19 locked most AMRs vendors out of facilities, but we've been able to ship AMRs to new customers and fully deploy those AMRs in only a couple of days, and do it all remotely.
We have been able to ship AMRs to new customers and fully deploy those AMRs in only a couple of days and do it all remotely
We’ve also seen customers instantly change their workflows to help with social distancing. All they did was open the Fetch generated map of their facility, and drag a drop-off or pick-up position to a different location.
However, the most significant impact of COVID-19 to Fetch was the number of customers that wanted disinfecting robots and the number of companies that wanted to use the Fetch platform to build disinfecting robots. So far, two companies [Albuquerque International Sunport, Piedmont National] have publicly launched disinfecting robots with more following soon.
Read the rest of the interview here.
Startups to keep an eye 💰n
In this section, we'll introduce recent funding rounds that we found particularly interesting
What if you could employ Iron Man?
Sarcos (US), a startup focused on robotics that augments humans to enhance productivity and safety (this edition's see it to believe it startup!), raised a $40M Series C led by Rotor Capital, and previous investors, Caterpillar Ventures and M12 (Microsoft).
What is it? The GuardianXO is the world’s first battery-powered, full-body industrial exoskeleton. The technology shines in its ability to magnify strength without compromising dexterity. Sarcos' clientele includes NASA, AT&T, Delta, and Ford.
Why we like it? The exoskeletons are coming! The GuardianXO adds 200 pounds of power to human intelligence, creativity, and judgment, whilst also keeping employees safe. The GuardianXO could also level the playing field for jobs where physical capability is a requirement.
What if you could produce custom designs at no extra cost?
Xometry (US), a B2B marketplace for on-demand manufacturing inspired by the sharing economy, raised a $75M Series E with participation from T. Rowe Price, Greenspring Associates, and others.
What is it? Xometry connects 5,000 manufacturers around the world with excess capacity to companies needing to build urgent, mission-critical parts. Buyers upload parts as CAD files, and Xometry's algorithms instantly price and source parts through a vendor network with capabilities across additive, CNC, and injection molding.
Why we like it? Idle time for manufacturers is one of the biggest drivers of waste and margin contraction. This Industry 4.0 spin on the sharing economy (the AirBnB for manufacturers?) has been going from strength to strength, and the data on parts, pricing, and manufacturer performance (lead time, quality, etc.), help train a powerful, always learning pricing algorithm. Xometry's service quality has met the most discerning standards from clients like BMW, NASA, GE, and Bosch.
What if your production line could scale with you?
Standard Robots (CN), an AMR startup that creates a seamless fleet of platform-moving-robots to automate production lines, has raised a ￥100m Series B led by Lightspeed Capital China and SourceCode Capital.
What is it? Standard Robots provides a suite of AMRs that can be outfitted with a range of add-ons like carrier belts, bionic arms, and mobile workstations, allowing entire production lines to become modular and autonomous. This level of coordination is achieved through a complex pairing between Standard's in-house FMS and WES data. Their initial set of use cases concentrate around the consumer electronics industry boasting clients like Huawei, ZTE, and Foxconn.
Why we like it? Standard Robot's full-stack solution allows AMRs to offer value beyond warehousing, and into manufacturing, a major leap forward in an AMRs application. From a macro perspective, there is an on-going demand for production lines to become increasingly flexible, due to shortening product life cycles. Standard's modular approach allows manufacturers to meet the demand of this new normal, increasing manufacturing efficiency and flexibility.
If you're interested in learning more about these startups, please reach out at John.Low@bain.com.
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