Dynamo Ventures Raises $43.21M Fund II to Double Down on Investing in Supply Chain & Mobility

Dynamo Ventures, a seed stage fund investing globally in supply chain and mobility startups, today announced it has raised a $43.21 million Fund II to double down on founders digitizing the supply chain from manufacturing to last mile delivery. This follows the firm’s $18 million Fund I, which was raised in 2016 and has been fully invested. Early investments in Fund II include drone delivery startup Manna Aero, decision science platform to optimize delivery operations, Nextmv, and intercompany product data automation platform Backbone AI.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has served to remind us all of the trillion-dollar market that underpins the global economy — the supply chain. Shortages of toilet paper or semiconductors, container ships stuck in the Suez Canal, and the importance of cold chains for the delivery of vaccines are just a few examples of how the pandemic has brought the global supply chain squarely into focus. Supply chains represent more than 10 percent of the global GDP, but are still largely managed and executed using manual processes and siloed, legacy systems.This inertia has led to an initial crop of venture-backed unicorns tackling the mammoth opportunity that includes Flexport, Convoy, and Dynamo’s own, sennder.

“We believe just as the Financial Crisis of 2008 drove a new generation of FinTech startups, the COVID-19 pandemic will drive a similar wave of innovation through the supply chain industry,” said Jon Bradford, partner at Dynamo Ventures. “We will see increased investment across shipping with air, trucks and rails, to warehousing and fulfilment to last-mile. We also expect this to include marketplaces, middleware solutions, and autonomous vehicles.”

After exiting their previous logistics business to UPS, Ted Alling and Barry Large co-founded Dynamo Ventures with Santosh Sankar in 2016. Their mission was to help founders navigate the complexities of the sector by leveraging their collective domain expertise and a demonstrated ability of helping founders go from zero to one in their effort to build a category-defining technology business. Bradford, who brings 15 years of early stage investment experience having launched Techstars first international program over eight years ago, recently joined the fund as its newest partner.

Dynamo Ventures’ LPs include organizations and entrepreneurs with deep subject matter expertise in supply chain and are committed to helping portfolio founders execute on their vision. Dynamo Ventures has also garnered the interest of more traditional LP investors from the institutional landscape including Cendana Capital who acknowledge the importance of specialist firms in partnering and investing with bold founding teams.

“Following a comprehensive review of sector focused VCs in supply chain, we felt that their domain expertise, proven approach to helping build companies, and network provides their portfolio with an unfair advantage of deeply understanding problems, accessing to potential customers, and earning follow-on investment,” said Michael Kim from Cendana Capital.

About Dynamo Ventures

Dynamo Ventures is a seed-stage fund investing globally in companies that are redefining global supply chains and rethinking the concept of mobility. The firm was founded in 2016 by a team of former operators and specialist investors who leverage their deep domain expertise to support founders with product, strategy, business development, and recruiting and talent development. Dynamo is known for its founder-centric, hands-on approach that draws from our team’s understanding of industry and practical knowledge of going from idea to product market fit. Dynamo is based in Chattanooga, Tennessee. For more information, visit dynamo.vc.
 

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James Christopherson

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Dynamo Ventures

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