Elk Grove’s Clockwork Logistics Systems has raised $3 million in a seed round of funding to grow its global shipping intelligence software.
The company’s cloud software platform connects global shipping companies with the local independent transportation and delivery companies in the destination city.
The new funding comes at a time that is testing all segments of the supply chain in many industries all over the world, CEO Rob Haney told the Business Journal. “It is continuing to be the most complicated time in logistics and supply chain we’ve ever seen. The whole supply chain is massively flawed.”
Clockwork has developed simple-to-use, real-time cargo tracking technology to manage the final-destination stage of delivery. In much of the shipping industry, the “last mile” is often handled by an independent truck driver who is disconnected from the process of tracking a shipment.
“How do you get proof of delivery in Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur? How do you get a proof of delivery in a place where you don’t know anyone?” Haney said.
With Clockwork, the driver using a smartphone can confirm that delivery.
The new funding round was led by South African corporate venture capital firm Newtown Partners - Imperial, as well as shipping company Vineta Ventures Gmbh of Hamburg, Germany, and Estes Express Lines, a Virginia-based shipping company.
Newtown Partners is a venture capital fund based in Cape Town, South Africa. Imperial Logistics Ltd. is a South African company that works primarily in African and eurozone logistics. Imperial and Newtown last year partnered to create a $20 million corporate venture fund to invest in disruptive startups in the logistics industry.
“Clockwork Logistics Systems was the first company supported by the city’s Startup Elk Grove Incentive Program, launched in 2018,” said Darrell Doan, Elk Grove economic development director, in a news release.
Clockwork raised the new money earlier in July, and it has hired three new salespeople. The company has 25 employees, and they are distributed all over the world.
Clockwork was launched in 2017 in Elk Grove under the name Sensor Transport Inc. It changed its name last year after it downplayed its temperature sensor technology in logistics in favor of its shipping and tracking technology.
The temperature and sensor business turned into a niche for the company, as more customers sought out the destination tracking verification technology, Haney said. “Your customers tell you what business you’re in.”
Clockwork’s software is programmable by the user to have 50 custom features that the user wants to manage or track, Haney said. Different users have different needs. For example, some users want to make sure the container arrives at its destination with an unbroken seal, while other users want to track the return of the actual container or even the wheeled carriages that carry containers.
The pandemic supply chain problems are showing that there needs to be more resilience in the chain, and part of that is building relationships, Haney said.
Companies are finding that their shipments fare better when they have relationships with the last-mile drivers and the drayage companies.
“In the past, it was impossible to own those relationships,” Haney said, adding that Clockwork’s platform makes that possible.
