[Funding alert] Locad raises $4.9M led by Sequoia Capital India’s Surge

Logistics and supply chain management integrator Locad on Monday announced $4.9 million in funding, in a seed round led by Sequoia Capital India’s Surge, with participation from Antler, Febe Ventures, Foxmont, Global Founders Capital, Gokongwei Family, and Hustle Fund. 

Locad offers ecommerce brands and retailers simple yet scalable end-to-end solutions, ranging from plug-and-play ecommerce fulfilment, to a distributed warehousing network in APAC for companies that are looking to scale their business internationally. 

Powered by a fully digital and integrated platform with real time visibility over order and inventory movements, Locad claims to plug an important gap in the current ecommerce state-of-play - the fragmented, complex, and slow supply chain ecosystem in Southeast Asia. 

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Founded in Manila and Singapore in October 2020, Locad has offices in Australia, Hong Kong, India, the Philippines and Singapore. While many companies address first mile and last mile problems in delivery, very few provide the fully integrated solution that Locad is pioneering. Business customers of Locad also have the opportunity to integrate with ecommerce platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce, Amazon, Shopee, Lazada and Zalora. Brands can manage all their orders and stock from a single virtual pool across multiple sales channels, with real-time visibility of sales, orders, inventory, and service levels.

“In an industry where reliability and speed could make or break an ecommerce brand, our ability to provide a one-stop platform, from fulfilment capability to distributed warehousing, allows brands to meet the evolving needs of their customers with flexible, nimble and pain-free logistics solutions,” said Constantin Robertz, CEO and Co-founder of Locad.

According to ResearchAndMarkets, the logistics market in Southeast Asia is forecasted to amount to $55.7 billion by 2025 - demonstrating the growing demand and necessity for flexible, technology-enabled solutions. With the exponential growth of ecommerce in the region, Locad is powering ecommerce brands who will play a pivotal role in driving Southeast Asia’s massive post-pandemic growth opportunity.

“Bengaluru is our Engineering HQ, the heart of our platform is developed here, and we are set on hiring the best and brightest tech talent to drive our expansion goals across the region,” added Shrey Jain, CTO and Co-founder of Locad.

Founders Constantin Robertz, Jannis Dargel and Shrey Jain came together to start Locad after years in Southeast Asia's ecommerce, transportation and logistics ecosystem, previously working in leadership roles at Grab and Zalora. 

Led by Sequoia Capital India’s Surge, the seed investment round of Locad is joined by Antler, Febe Ventures, Foxmont, Global Founders Capital, the Gokongwei Family, Hustle Fund and angel investors from the technology, ecommerce and logistics ecosystem, including Alessandro Duri (ecommerce, MEA), Paulo Campos (ecommerce, Zalora), Henry Ko (Logistics, Flexport), Huey Lin (Technology, xAffirm and xFlexport), Thibaud Lecuyer (Logistics, Loggi), Oliver Mickler and Tim Seithe (Fintech, Tillhub), Christian Weiss and Tim Marbach (Technology, Venture Capital).

Locad is part of Surge’s fifth cohort of 23 companies that have developed new digital solutions to help companies and individuals work, live and learn better in a rapidly evolving Southeast Asian landscape.