Startup News: Locus raises $50 million in Series C funding

Locus, which provides a software platform that automates supply chain and logistics decisions, has raised $50 million in Series C funding led by GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, with participation from 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.

Locus will majorly use the funds for improving geographical reach and building its research and development team to expand the product line.

“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.

Locus uses deep machine learning and proprietary algorithms to offer smart supply chain solutions to customers. The company’s solutions have resulted in $150 million+ savings in logistics costs, 70 million+ kilometer reductions in distance traveled, and 17 million plus kilograms reduction in GHG emissions for clients across sectors like e-commerce, retail, e-grocery, consumer goods, home services, home deliveries, 3PL, transportation, and B2B distribution, according to the company.

Locus works with clients across North America, Southeast Asia, Europe, and the Indian subcontinent. Its solutions include route optimization, real-time tracking and analytics, sales beat optimization, territory planning, vehicle allocation and network design.

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. Heil previously worked at Project44 and BluJay, while Parmett was a part of 3GTMS and Manhattan Associates.

“At this juncture, I would like to thank all our customers for placing their faith in us and being our partners in innovation. It gives us immense pleasure to know that we’ve added value to your supply chain and logistics operations. 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,” added Rastogi. “I would also like to thank the Locus team for the efforts they put in day in and day out. I hope we can show our gratitude by creating substantial wealth for all their efforts.”

“Locus’ smart product suite is optimizing supply chain efficiencies by using machine learning to deliver real-time tracking and insights for the last mile fulfillment,” said Varsha Tagare, Sr. Director, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., and Managing Director at Qualcomm Ventures. “We’re excited to invest in Locus to enable logistics as a service and support their journey to become a global last-mile automation leader.”

The company had earlier raised $30 million across multiple rounds.