Supply chain technology startup Locus on Thursday announced that it has raised $50 million in Series C funding led by GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund. The funding also saw the participation of Qualcomm Ventures LLC and existing investors Tiger Global and Falcon Edge. Noted angel investors Amrish Rau, CEO of Pine Labs; Kunal Shah, CEO of Cred; Raju Reddy, founder of Sierra Atlantic; and Deb Deep Sengupta, former President & MD, SAP South Asia; also participated in the round.
Bengaluru-based Locus said it will use the funds for improving geographical reach and building its research and development team to expand the product line. Locus uses deep machine learning and proprietary algorithms to offer smart supply chain solutions to customers. The company had earlier raised $30 million across multiple rounds.
According to the company, its scalable solutions have resulted in $150 million+ savings in logistics costs, 70 million+ kilometre reductions in distance traveled, and 17 million+ kilograms reduction in GHG (greenhouse gas) emissions for clients across sectors like e-commerce, retail, e-grocery, home services, home deliveries, transportation, and B2B distribution.
Locus works with clients across North America, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Indian subcontinent. It has offices in the USA, the UK, India, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Germany. Locus has been on an expansion spree in the Americas, bolstering its leadership with industry veterans such as Walter Heil, Senior Vice President, Business (Americas), and Michael D. Parmett, Vice President, Customer Success.
“Quality & patient capital allows us to focus on path-breaking R&D, helping us deliver exceptional long-term value to our customers, over incremental improvements. We will be recruiting more PhDs in our data science team and are looking to double our patents by 2022,” said Nishith Rastogi, CEO, Locus. “We are now looking to support our customers with a global footprint. Other than the geographies we are already present in, we are also investing heavily in Latin America and aggressively building our presence there,” he added.