With increased focus on the fragility of the global supply chain, a local startup is helping keep companies connected to their suppliers around the world – boosted by a new round of funding.
Dallas-based supply chain connection platform Mercado announced closing a $2.5 million funding round led by Austin-based venture capital and private equity firm Ironspring Ventures. The round was joined by new investor Supply Chain Ventures and existing investors LiveOak Venture Partners, Schematic Ventures, Story Ventures and Amplifier.
“Our mission is to help companies get their products to market better, faster and cheaper through the use of technology,” Mercado founder and CEO Rob Garrison told NTX Inno. “We’ll help them reduce their costs and improve their sales, that’s our overall mission: What can we do to help the customer succeed?”
Mercado, launched in 2018, digitizes the international supply and demand process, allowing users to collaborate with different partners, while adding transparency and automation into the process.
With this new round of funding, Mercado plans to expand its sales and marketing, as well as further develop its platform to include new technologies like machine learning. It also hopes to begin creating customized supply chain connection software for its companies in the future.
“We hope that by giving [businesses] transparency to all of the things good, bad or indifferent that are happening in their supply chain, that they’ll make better decisions,” Garrison said.
In addition, Mercado will be adding Ironspring Managing Partner Ty Findley to its board of directors.
Due to the pandemic, Mercado has seen an uptick in business, as many companies look to make the first mile – where orders and placed and processed – more efficient, due to the closing of manufacturing facilities in different parts of the world caused by new safety measures and lockdown orders. Garrison said for many, it has shown the need for being agile in using different suppliers, something he sees continuing long after the pandemic.
“What [the pandemic] has really done is exposed in a very vivid and real way for people involved in this trade that their supply chain was extremely fragile, and that by connecting it digitally they could add resilience to it,” Garrison said.
Mercado has a team of about 30 employees and contractors. The new funding brings the company’s total to $5.7 million, following a $3.2 million Seed round last November, which was led by Austin’s LiveOak Venture Partners.
“The whole world has shifted. For sure we believe that global trade is here to stay. It’s the backbone of every economy. We’re so connected in this world… we’ve built all of the infrastructure for people to be connected 24/7, both socially and economically,” Garrison said. “What I see shifting though… is it will make it easier for people to shift their supply chains to accommodate what’s happening with their customers, but also what’s happening in the world.”
