Indonesia's Waresix closes Series B round, raises US$100m over past year

INDONESIAN logistics tech startup Waresix has closed its Series B funding round, and raised US$100 million over the last year, it said in a statement on Thursday.

The funds came from existing investors EV Growth and Jungle Ventures, and new investors, including SoftBank Ventures Asia, EMTEK Group, Pavilion Capital and Redbadge Pacific.

The startup's logistics tech platform provides consolidation, back-haul optimisation and hub-and-spoke distribution solutions to Indonesia's trucking and warehousing segments. These solutions can achieve 50 per cent higher truck utilisation than traditional shippers, Waresix said.

Trucking services - which form the majority of the startup's business - are focused on first-mile and mid-mile intercity shipments.

Waresix will use the fresh capital to develop "the most robust logistics technology infrastructure" in South-east Asia, and build out its team to help it seize the large market opportunity in the logistics sector, chief executive Andree Susanto said.

The startup has been developing a unified, operating system-like platform for its partners, which will improve their daily operations involving vendors and customers. The platform will give partners a compact, single view of their consignments across transport channels and transit warehouses.

Waresix boasts a logistics ecosystem of over 40,000 trucks and 375 warehouse operators in more than 100 cities and towns across Indonesia.

Unlike platforms from other logistics companies, which primarily focus on building passive load-board and listings, Waresix said its platform cultivates a managed-service ecosystem.

It added that it is seeing "rapid growth" in its first-mile and mid-mile trucking services, despite Covid-19 disruptions.

Waresix, which has been profitable on a net-income basis since June 2019, has over 250 clients, including Unilever, Indofood, Siam Cement Group, Wings and JD.ID, according to the statement.