Supply chains face threats from everything from freezing temperatures that could spoil food to natural disasters and criminal activity that could compromise an entire shipment.
Austin startup Riskpulse has built a software business around helping companies identify risks to their shipments, building a risk score and automatically scanning for alternative scheduling and risk mitigation options.
And now it's being scooped up in an acquisition jointly orchestrated by venture firms Columbia Capital and Greenspring Associates, as well as shipping and logistics giant DHL.
Under the deal, Riskpulse will operate independently for a while before being paired with Resilience360, an end-to-end supply chain monitoring program that operates as an independent company managed by Rising Tide Digital, a holding company created by Columbia Capital.
Columbia and its partners also plan to provide $22.7 million in additional funding to expand the software's predictive insights capabilities.
“Since demonstrating that our predictive analytics can deliver provable ROI to some of the most innovative supply chain participants, Riskpulse has seen significant interest from the investment community,” Simon Woods, CEO of Riskpulse, said in a statement. “Joining the Columbia-led platform creates the greatest value for our clients because, together with growth capital, Columbia, DHL and Greenspring bring a platform ready to scale globally with unique and valuable data assets.”
Riskpulse was born in 2015 out of the combination of two other startups -- Stormpulse, a weather tracking site co-founded by Matthew Wensing, and EarthRisk Technologies, a San Diego company with long-term weather forecasts co-founded by Stephen Bennett.
Altogether, the two companies, now combined, raised $6 million in funding. Crunchbase shows the money came from a variety of angel investors, including Joshua Baer from Capital Factory, Jason Seats from Techstars and Rony Kahan, co-founder of Indeed.
