Bext360, a Denver, CO-based company that develops technologies to streamline critical supply chains in emerging economies, closed $2.15M in seed funding.
The round was led by SKS Ventures with participation from Plug and Play Ventures, as well as individual angel investors.
The company, which has raised $3.35M in total funding to date, intends to use the capital to expand into new verticals, including cotton, palm oil, cocoa, nuts, seafood and timber.
Launched in April 2017 and led by CEO Daniel Jones, Bext360 provides a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) technology platform to analyze and trace commodities from producer to consumer. Additionally, the company produces the BextMachine, which leverages machine vision and artificial intelligence, IoT and blockchain technology from Stellar.org, to collect and analyze coffee cherries from its source through the supply chain, make electronic payments to coffee farmers, as well as provide complete traceability and critical data to improve the quality of the coffee supply chain.
Although the technology can be applied to a range of commodities, the company has been focused on the coffee industry for the last 12 months. In the last year, Bext360 has signed partnerships with Caravela Coffee, Frinj Coffee, Counter Culture, Moyee Coffee, Great Lakes Coffee and Coda Coffee, and has already completed full production programs with Moyee Coffee, Great Lakes Coffee and Coda Coffee.
It will now be expanding into new verticals, including minerals, cocoa (valued at nearly $10 billion globally in 2017), nuts (valued at $20.30 billion globally in 2017), seafood (valued at over $200 billion in the US in 2015), cotton (valued at $77 billion globally in 2015), timber (valued at $35 billion globally in 2017) and palm oil (valued at $65.73 billion globally in 2015).
FinSMEs
01/06/2018