S is for Supply Chain
After three amazing years at Motive Partners, I have decided to step back into seed-stage investing again and will be joining Dynamo Ventures as a Partner. I will be continuing to serve as an advisor to Motive Partners.
Having invested in some amazing entrepreneurs over the years that include Apiary, Hassle, Tray.io, Flitto (that recently IPO’ed in Korea), Sendbird and Chainalysis, it is clear that my heart is working with entrepreneurs at the earliest stages.
Dynamo Ventures is a US-EU based seed fund focused on B2B startups in supply chain and mobility and was set-up by Ted Alling and Barry Large who bootstrapped their freight brokerage, Access America Transport to $490M revenues over 12 years to become the second-largest private freight brokerage in the US. It subsequently merged with Coyote Logistics in Chicago and sold to UPS for $1.8B.
By way of fate (and the virtuous circle that the startup universe operates), I initially met Ted when he volunteered as a mentor at Techstars during a sabbatical year he took in London. I went on to become a very good friend with him and his other cofounders. As an advisor, I helped Ted, Barry and Santosh launch Dynamo Ventures’ debut $18M fund in 2016 and grow its portfolio an amazing vintage of founders and startups. While it is still very early we have high hopes for them and their potential.
During this period, Dynamo Ventures has invested in 20 startups across the US and overseas including India, Dubai, Berlin, London and Mexico — and include some amazing startups across the spectrum of supply chain and mobility including Sennder (Berlin), Skupos, Stord, Gatik and LEAF Logistics.
A few might roll their eyes at the idea of another thesis-driven VC, but the supply chain industry is a multi-billion-dollar opportunity that is undergoing seismic change, similar to financial services over the last 10 years. By way of comparison, supply chain and financial services represent 8.5% and 7% of US GDP respectively (globally supply chain represents 12.5% of GDP).
The trillion-dollar gorilla in the room is Amazon which has gone from the industry’s largest customer to its biggest competitor driving the industry to the response. In the same way that Amazon built AWS from its e-commerce store, Amazon is building Amazon Logistics.
Furthermore, customer expectations have radically changed where previously the only way to buy something was at a store. Today there are multiple options — causing supply chain to reinvent itself. Like other legacy industries built on a spaghetti of siloed systems, there are many opportunities for greater efficiency, optimization and sustainability.
Furthermore, Dynamo has carved out a (bloody big) niche to become a co-investor of choice in supply chain alongside Cowboy Ventures, Floodgate, and Susa Ventures as well as follow-on investors including Kleiner Perkins, Accel, Insight, and Lakestar.
I am massively excited about the opportunity and working with the Dynamo Ventures team and will be blogging more frequently about my adventures in supply chain and mobility.
