Felux, the B2B marketplace and supply chain platform for steel and industrial materials in Cleveland, has raised $5.1 million in seed funding to continue its growth.
The funding round was led by Expa, the San Francisco-based studio, accelerator and early stage investor created by Uber co-founder Garrett Camp, with participation from 8VC, Lightbank and strategic industry partners.
Felux was founded by some heavy hitters in steel and technology, according to their LinkedIn profiles:
- Todd Leebow, serial entrepreneur and CEO of Majestic Steel USA, the metals service center in Cleveland, is executive chairman and a founder.
- Dallas Hogensen, another serial entrepreneur with experience in sales and leadership at startups including Lyft, the ridesharing platform, is CEO and a founder.
- Chris Day, the former executive vice president of analytics and innovation for Majestic Steel, is chief operating officer and a founder.
Felux aims to transform the $1 trillion steel industry by bringing commerce and inventory online through a digital solution that manages supply chains, purchasing, procurement, financing and logistics, the Cleveland company said in a press release.
Most steel industry inventory lives in legacy computer systems and paper documents, significantly reducing suppliers’ ability to create a seamless purchasing experience with customers.
The Felux platform enables buyers and suppliers to connect with thousands of potential customers and gives them the technology to manage sourcing, procurement, logistics, financing and payments.
In the last 12 months, Felux has facilitated more than $90 million in transactions, the software company said.
The Felux platform has more than 1,500 customer locations, ranging from Fortune 500 companies to mills, service centers, brokers, traders and manufacturers in the United States, Canada and Mexico.
"The era of digitization in the steel industry has arrived," CEO Hogensen said in his company's release.
Felux technologists have been building tools to help suppliers and buyers put their inventory and catalogs online and get access to best-in-class financing rates, Hogensen said.
"We have been able to create a consumer-like purchasing process for an extremely complex... and offline industry," he said.
As a result, Felux is seeing suppliers earn larger margins on deals and buyers find new suppliers with better pricing even though the global supply chain remains challenged and steel prices are rising, Hogensen said.
"Felux is at the forefront of truly changing the way one of the world's most important industries does business," said Roberto Sanabria, managing partner of investor Expa, in Felux's release.
