Nuvocargo raises $20.5M to boost trade between US and Mexico

Cross-border startup Nuvocargo announced Friday that it has raised $20.5 million in a funding round led by Tiger Global Management.

Deepak Chhugani, Nuvocargo’s founder and CEO, said the company didn’t need the capital since it still had most of the $12 million it raised in a series A round in April.

“Tiger showed real conviction and moved fast with their term sheet even though we were not raising,” Chhugani said in a statement. “We deeply respect their approach to investing and it was a great experience.”

New York-based Nuvocargo is a digital logistics platform for cross-border trade between the U.S. and Mexico. The company offers an all-in-one services platform, including freight forwarding, customs brokerage, cargo insurance and trade financing, in a user-friendly app.

Supply chains globally are undergoing immense stress and there is an opportunity to build startups to improve cross-border trade, said John Curtius, a partner at New York-based Tiger Global Management.

“We’re really ramping up our investment pace in Latin America and in logistics and supply chain,” Curtis said. “We seek to back the category leaders in every space we invest in, and that’s what we saw in Nuvocargo for the trade corridor between the United States and Latin America.”

Watch: Teclo Garcia discusses the importance of cross-border trade with Mexico from Laredo, Texas.

Other participants in the latest funding round include The Flexport Fund, the COO of Mexico-based startup Kavak and existing investors QED Investors and NFX. The capital brings Nuvocargo’s total funding to $37.8 million since its launch in 2019.

Nuvocargo will use the funds to continue expanding its solutions while also developing new products.

The latest round valued Nuvocargo at $180 million, more than double the $70 million it was valued at eight months ago.

The port of entry in Laredo, Texas, is one of the busiest commercial border crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border. Laredo’s outbound tender volume index (OTVI.LRD) — a measure of shipper requests for truckload capacity — is up more than 35% since Dec. 1.