Tampa-based AI startup AMNI wants to leverage new technologies to revolutionize the antiquated industry of supply chain management and procurement, CEO and co-founder Chris Jones said.
Since its founding in 2018, the Embarc Collective company has raised $1.3 million in pre-series funding and gradually built its offerings. Now, it has reached a pivotal moment, Jones said. It has hired a new chief technology officer with plans to go to market and meet its customer base.
"We focused for the past couple of years on the data collection. Now, it's about how to best utilize that data and really accomplish those goals that we set out initially for the company," Jones said.
As it developed its supply chain services to help customers optimize, like a digital inventory management and resource planning solution, it created a set of supply chain data. The company has now pivoted to focus on this data. It is working to sell supply chain procurement services augmented to combine this proprietary data with public market data to create efficiency for its customers.
It can, for example, help a warehouse offload its excess inventory. It could connect the warehouse to an AMNI software solution to help it find buyers for the excess inventory to find space and free cash flow for the materials, Jones said.
AMNI hired BJ Fox, a longtime software developer, with a mission to further the company's product development and grow the customer base now that it has reached this stage, Jones said.
Fox has over 30 years of experience working at companies like PayPal and Microsoft. He contributed to the launch of Windows Azure, Microsoft's cloud computing program, and has held leadership positions at several startups focusing on financial services, virtual currency and AdTech, the company said.
"His proven ability to construct efficient teams and magnify their potential within the fast-paced environment of growth-oriented companies ensures that our clients can anticipate more agile, faster and more reliable product outcomes," Jones said in a prepared statement.
It's also an expansion of the C-suite and representative of the growth in hiring the company is pursuing, Jones said. It plans to hire sales and marketing employees to augment its 10-member staff so the company can ramp up commercialization.
It's also working on an angel investment round, which Jones said is nearly finalized.
"That's the focus right now with this smaller raise that we're doing is getting us to a point of breaking even and profitability," Jones said.
