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To develop its “logistics engine” throughout Australia and Southeast Asia, Locad secures Series A funding

When Constantin Robertz began working at Zalora, he was engaged in shifting warehouses six times as the e-commerce business expanded its logistical infrastructure. This motivated him to co-found Locad, a logistics provider for omnichannel e-commerce enterprises that integrates its network of third-party warehouses and shipping carriers with a cloud-based platform known as its “logistics engine.”

Today, Singapore and Manila-based startup Locad announced that it had raised $11 million in Series A funding led by Reefknot Investments, a joint venture between Temasek and logistics company Kuehne + Nagel. Locad was founded by Robertz, fellow Zalora alumni Jannis Dargel, and former Grab lead product manager of maps Shrey Jain. New investors Access Ventures, JG Summit, and WTI joined existing investors Sequoia India and Surge, Febe Ventures, and Antler from Southeast Asia.

Locad can manage practically every element of the delivery process, from inventory storage and packaging through shipment and tracking. Over 200 businesses, including Havaians, Levi’s Reckitt Benckiser, and Emma Sleep, have used Locad for order fulfilment thus far. On a daily basis, the company ships between 25 and 5,000 orders to its clients in Singapore, the Philippines, Thailand, Hong Kong, and Australia. More than two million items were sent using Locad last year, and the company boasts a 99% same-day order fulfilment record.

Locad plans to utilise the fresh capital it has raised to expand its network of warehouses and transport operators, as well as to increase its workforce in Southeast Asia and Australia.

Robertz said helping Zalora build out its logistics infrastructure “planted the idea of how a cloud approach to supply chain, with a scalable logistics infrastructure as a service, would be a better way.” As part of their experience at Zalora, Robertz and Dargel helped businesses establish their own e-commerce fulfilment infrastructure and technology stack in order to serve numerous sales channels.

Distribution systems designed for business-to-business wholesale couldn’t keep up with the growth of direct-to-consumer firms as they opened new channels of distribution. It also meant businesses could no longer depend on “walled garden” fulfilment networks managed by e-commerce companies, such Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA), as they went up.