A locally based supply chain technology startup wants to make warehouses more efficient.
Located in the 1871 incubator, and also part of the Techstars' Industries of the Future Accelerator, Arvist raised an oversubscribed $1.1 million pre-seed round this week.
The funding round included Refashiond Ventures, Geek Ventures, Lofty Ventures, The Council Fund, Blue Impact Supply Chain Ventures and Techstars.
Arvist uses data that already exists in warehouses and other similar environments — such as security camera footage — to provide companies with insights about their operations in real time.
"We're just using security cameras as a data input," Arvist founder and CEO Nilay Parikh told Chicago Inno. "That provides you data on things like loading dock conditions, when trucks are arriving, detention charges and then on the safety side: how are people lifting things, any near collisions or near misuses, and identifying hazardous zones where the chances of an accident are highest."
Parikh said the goal is to make processes more efficient and reduce the costs of doing the business while improving the safety, quality and productivity of how companies move their goods.
Parikh built up more than seven years of experience with 3D-printing and advanced-manufacturing work before launching Arvist. He found an efficiency gap in the supply chain sector and created new technology to allow for remote warehouse and distribution-center operations.
After going through the TechStars program last year, Parikh had a chance to raise money at the time — but he said he elected to get his technology more "validation" first.
He said the company secured three customers to use Arvist's technology before pursuing the newly secured funding.
Given the way the VC market has played out over the past year, Parikh feels he made the right choice to wait.
"It's a very tough time to fundraise, and investors want to see more than just an idea. They want to see validation of the product," he said. "In our case, we waited until we actually deployed it and had customer testimonials from people who were actually using it."
Parikh thinks it's more important than ever in this environment for startups to prove their product first, as waiting until he had paying customers helped Arvist when it came time to fundraise.
The initial capital will be used help scale the company, Parikh said, with a target of securing 20 to 25 customers from across the country.
