Samsung leads Series A for visibility data provider Vizion

Vizion powers investor’s digital forwarding solution — Cello Square

Grace Sharkey

2 years ago

Supply chain visibility provider Vizion announced Tuesday it has closed a $14 million Series A round led by customer Samsung’s investment arm, Samsung Venture Investment, to continue scaling its sales and product teams supporting its application programming interface.

Maersk Growth and Value Stream Ventures also participated in the round to support the company’s sole focus of creating a supply chain data pipeline, democratizing technology and innovation for global shippers.

“Longer term, companies big and small are wanting to build on data strategies they are putting in place now,” co-founder and CEO Kyle Henderson told FreightWaves. “Visibility data of today are the key data inputs into your performance analytics tomorrow and more importantly into your optimization plans and network designing of the future.”

Funding details	Vizion
Funding amount	$14 million
Funding round	Series A
Lead investor	Samsung Venture Investment
Secondary investors	Maersk Growth, ValueStream Ventures
Business goals for the round	Expand team to scale customer base and software solutions
Post-money valuation	$61 million
Total funding	$18.75 million

Supporting global supply chain innovation

According to Henderson, Vizion’s goal has always been providing a large amount of supply chain data, accessible through a simple API connection, enabling large global shippers to invest in in-house logistics solutions.

“Vizion is more than just visibility, we are helping companies see how they can apply technology today to differentiate their futures,” he said.

So when Vizion connected with the IT services subsidiary of electronics corporation Samsung just under a year ago, the company was able to quickly integrate its data sources into Samsung SDS’s freight forwarding software Cello Square, providing users with real-time monitoring of their shipments.

“This was a natural fit,” said Henderson. “This allows Samsung to set a new bar of service levels for logistics customers, and Vizion supports this through hyperfocus on enhanced visibility technologies.”

Samsung has not been the only global shipper in need of a focused, real-time visibility provider. According to Henderson, many customers are seeing the need to invest in technology solutions for supply chain resilience and are looking for a strategic data partner to adopt the technology faster.

“We see brands, logistics companies and software companies quickly trying to catch up to modern levels of digitization in North America and Europe. This is common to see in the adoption curve across geographies in the software industry,” he said.

Vizion’s account and revenue growth since its $3.25 million seed round in September showcases the demand for its services, with 132% account growth and 649% revenue growth in the past nine months alone.

With the support of the company’s strategic investors, Henderson plans to grow its product and sales teams to bring its existing and new offerings to these global shippers.

“The Vizion team is very excited to be pushing several new expansions to our current ocean freight tracking product. We are also forging new partnerships with value-added partners both in technology offerings and services. Additionally, we will be releasing several data lake products over the next year that will support companies in their data strategies and supply chain network design,” said Henderson.