Fero, a cloud-based robotic process automation (RPA) and enterprise resource planning (ERP)-products company that has created TiA, the World’s 1st Intelligent Virtual Assistant for Supply Chain, has announced the successful closure of the fundraising of $1.1 million from a boutique institutional investor and various prominent angel investors.
Fero provides an ecosystem of Transport ERPs and TiA - Transport Interactive Assistant, a software to free logistics employees from mundane tasks. TiA listens, understands, talks, & messages over various messaging platforms, just like Alexa but built for logistics enterprises.
Fero, part of the Microsoft Growth X programme and its novel B2B innovation, is already being adopted and in use by marquee clients such as DSV, Gulftainer and Emirates Logistics with customers in GCC, India and the UK, helping operations employees to automate everyday tasks such booking loads, collecting shipment documents and checking on the status of drivers and be left with only having to manage exceptions.
The Fero's ecosystem includes SaaS for First, Last and Mid-Mile Transport Management, Delivery Management and the unique SaaS product of a “Plug-and-Play Uberization" for Road-Freight, called FAST (Freight Aggregation Software for Trucking), all of them come with TiA. TiA works is compatible with any other Freight ERP in the market.
By applying TiA to the existing Freight ERPs of Fero's clients, the company has helped clients, from sectors including distribution, retail and logistics, automate over 2,000,000 interactions – including emails and calls, related to 100,000 automated truck trips end-to-end; from rate exploration to invoicing, resulting in the combined savings of an estimated $18m for Fero clients.
“Visibility and communication between internal and external parties are critical albeit very difficult as shippers, transporters and freight forwarders use various transport management and delivery management systems. Everyone is tired of new apps so we rely on existing communication tools such as WhatsApp, plus we know that in a fragmented market such as the road freight market where e.g. the top six carriers hold less than 5 per cent market share of a €105 billion market, there will never be unity in the systems in use,” Carolin-Carmen Neubauer, Fero’s co-founder and COO.
The power of Fero's software is the improved optimisation through enhancement of asset allocation with the help of applying machine learning based on a complex set of variables such as driver constraints, vehicle constraints, route constraints, all combined with customer behaviour when allocating and receiving the shipment.
With its new infusion of capital, the company looks to add tech engineers to its team to continue growing its product capabilities, increase its presence in Europe, and further work on additional integrations with Freight ERPs.
Fero’s Series A is targeted Q4 2021/Q1 2022.
