Toronto-based Nulogy, which provides cloud solutions for enterprise, announced a $14 million raise from Tola Capital.
According to Nulogy CEO Jason Tham, many large brands — like Kraft, Heinz, and General Mills — own smaller brands which control a majority of their own the supply chain processes. Instead, they rely on third party manufacturers to make and distribute the product. Increasingly, brands are focusing more at just branding and marketing, while it’s up to the co-packers to make the products using raw ingredients, while also packaging it and distributing it on behalf of the brand.
Nulogy ensures that there is transparency and visibility in the process by allowing suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors to collaborate on one platform. The company’s customers are spread across 50 countries, and include Kellogg’s, ARI Packaging, and DHL. “The problem is that brands want to ensure that they have quality of products and visibility in what’s being made and get speed to market,” said Tham. “When it’s not their own assets or facilities, they have to get visibility into that network. So for the brand, it’s peace of mind, visibility, compliance, and quality.”
Nulogy’s last reported funding round was in 2014, when the company raised $7.5 million. Interestingly, though, Tham said that the company wasn’t even planning to raise funding this year, but they found a “shared vision” from Tola Capital.
“It’s much more valuable to be the best in a new market rather than being one of many in a large market that’s expanding.”
“They want to help us build a longstanding and sustainable company, and leveraging data, mobile only in B2B enterprise, that first of all is why we did the financing,” he said. With the funding, Nulogy plans to work on research and development in Toronto, but is also focused on continuing global expansion, especially in Europe. Nulogy is also eager to hire in the areas of data science, product management, engineering, and sales and marketing to expand their 100-person team to 200.
While Nulogy’s platform is committed to enterprise, Tham maintains that Nulogy’s features allow its clients to stay agile and customize for an increasingly ‘me’ economy. With Nulogy, companies can see how well certain products sell in different geographies, allowing them to optimize for market and distribution.
“Back in the day, everything was just the same and you can get one flavour of product. But now you have a myriad spectrum of options and the consumers today want more optionality, and because of that brands need flexibility and agility to make those products. So we’re looking at the macro picture of what’s driving consumption of products. And we want to build a product and platform that’s gonna last a long time,” he said.
Tham explains the company’s commitment to B2B solutions as a commitment to an industry that guarantees Nulogy’s longevity; people will always buy chocolate, food, and cosmetics, and as more people embrace software and optimize for the digital economy, solutions like Nulogy will become more valuable as they focus on moving physical things using digital.
“It’s much more valuable to be the best in a new market rather than being one of many in a large market that’s expanding. So we just wanted to be the best at this one thing. And its not as accessible than other products, but really valuable to the world because manufacturing is the largest market in the world and has the largest economic multiplier,” said Tham. “Part of our vision was not to just be relevant to canada still important but it’s more valuable to look at impact. Finding the solutions and relevance to global program is something we gravitate toward.”