SINGAPORE-headquartered Portcast announced on Monday (Nov 18) that it secured US$6.5 million in a Series A funding round led by Susquehanna Asia Venture Capital.
The round’s participants included new investors such as Hearst Ventures and Signal Ventures, alongside Portcast’s existing investors such as Wavemaker Partners, TMV and Innoport.
Portcast operates a platform of the same name that provides transportation visibility for supply chains in the international transportation sector.
The platform provides businesses with live updates on freight movements, estimated arrival timings of cargo and risk management tools, to allow its customers to plan their schedules, better mitigate risks and avoid additional costs.
Its mission is to make supply chains more resilient to disruptions – such as adverse weather, congestion and policy changes – and it utilises technology and artificial intelligence (AI) to do so.
“With this investment, Portcast is well-positioned to deliver on its mission of making global trade more resilient through actionable data,” the company said.
It added that the funding would accelerate its product innovation – especially in the area of leveraging generative AI to improve risk management, transport planning and invoice auditing capabilities.
Portcast’s founder and chief executive Nidhi Gupta said: “Supply chain disruptions have become the norm, driving up costs for shippers and logistics service providers globally.”
Given this, she believes it is no longer sufficient to only monitor shipments, and that it should be a priority to use data and supply chain visibility to drive action through automated recommendations.