A VC in Vacationland

One of our emerging investing themes at Supply Chain Ventures is the democratization of supply chain technology. Over the past four or so decades, supply chains have become increasingly complex–think globalization, eCommerce, and the emergence of real-time data on traffic, weather, among other drivers of supply chain efficiencies. And supply chain planning and execution software has become more complex along with these changes,  incorporating the toolsets and data to deal with these complexities.

All this is fine if you are a large company with sufficient resources to keep up with all the improvements in technology as well as hire smarter and more educated people to manage these tools. If you are a smaller company, less sophisticated packages do exist that provide adequate solutions but still require well-educated professionals to use them in many cases.

Let's assume that large and smaller companies using expensive and complex supply chain software make up 30% of global companies that rely on supply chains to source, manage inventory, or ship goods. That leaves 70% (probably a large underestimate) on their own when it comes from running the supply chain part of their businesses. We realize that many of these companies may rely on homegrown or excel spreadsheets to approximate more sophisticated business tools, but many just wing it.

At SCV, we've begun to see entrepreneurs developed slimmed down and inexpensive supply chain technology to help even tiny local businesses do a better job managing supply chains. We first saw larger companies software companies trying to dumb down their software for the SMB marketplace, but the resulting tools were often still too complex and expensive. What has begun emerging is what we call 'native' supply chain solutions, software built from the ground up with an unsophisticated business person in mind that sells for very affordable prices, often less than $20 per month.

Our first investment in this space is Shipday,  a team out of Silicon Valley who have developed a simple local delivery management platform used globally by thousands of users in 50 countries (eight languages available) of local shops and businesses to organize customer deliveries. The technology enables direct web ordering without having to pay 30% to online marketplaces to do eCommerce. With no marketing and sales beyond a web presence and partnerships, Shipday has managed to create a global following that requires no more than a smartphone to operate.

 On the planning side of supply chain software, Inventoro, out of Prague sells sophisticated but easy-to-use sales& operations planning software for $49 per month to SMBs globally. Like Shipday, they do very little marketing, relying on web searches/word of mouth to acquire new clients. 

Another investment of ours via SSC Venture Partners (where we are a limited partner) is Fisherman, which automatically builds and maintains business websites within five minutes for SMBs globally. Although there are lots of no-code/low code tools to build websites out there, most require some technical knowledge, which Fisherman does not. Even in the US, it's estimated that 30% of businesses do not have a web presence and many others have outdated websites that are difficult to maintain. And the number approaches 85% when global small businesses are included.

Making supply chain toolsets available inexpensively across the globe to small businesses will help these companies increase profits, compete with neighboring shops, and generally improve the lives of millions of owners and their families. The democratization of supply chain technology is a real and important trend, one that will help create a better world for many.