Our Investment in ISO Technologies
Bringing Collaborative Supply Chain Performance to the Cloud
We take a lot of the daily infrastructure in our modern society for granted. In particular, our supply chain and logistics infrastructure brings us the dairy/produce/meats, bottled water, and toilet paper you order at the grocery store. It keeps shelves stocked at the local pharmacy with the medicine, vitamins, sanitizers, and toothpaste you need. It works behind the scenes to deliver to you that new webcam for your zoom, new clothing for your kids, those home-office furniture pieces, and the iPad you buy online.
When we met up with the future founders of ISO Technologies, Brian Cristol, Charlie Bergevin, and John Stauffer, they shared a unique insight that resonated with us and that came from prior work as the founding team at Uber Freight. The insight was that, while 10% of total worldwide GDP is attributed to logistics costs and the US logistics market alone is reaching $2 Trillion, there was not an accurate nor data-driven way to monitor the performance of these logistics networks that compose our supply chains. The service level agreements in this vast layer of our economy are growing increasingly more stringent in performance requirements (see Walmart’s recent SLA hike), but the software solutions are woefully lacking for these industries. The ISO founders discovered that 20% up to 50% of retailer (“The Receiver”) penalties levied against CPG companies (“The Shipper”) were not based in timely accurate data, and presented an economic loss that was ultimately passed onto the consumer in the price of the goods.
What they found is a classic email+spreadsheets problem in which this fragmented data was dispersed and often lost inside different silos inside the same company and certainly disconnected between shippers, carriers, and retailers. A new data-driven and cloud-based performance monitoring system was the right solution to solve this problem. ISO connects the siloed data systems between shippers and their customers and partners and aggregates that data into a more real-time collaborative “system of record”. Using a cloud-based SaaS approach, they are bringing a combination of digitization, workflow enhancement, and data analytics to accurately assess the performance of any given supply chain. If they are successful, the benefits to a multitude of industries and the ultimate end-consumer will be tremendous.
Today, we are thrilled to lead their $3 million seed financing alongside L37 Ventures, and support Brian, Charlie, and John on their mission. They have built a world class team hailing from Uber, Flexport, and Echo Logistics, and have started signing up customers on their service.
To read more about their vision for Collaborative Performance Management for Supply Chains, and join their team, please visit them here: http://iso.io
Thanks for reading,
Steve
