Citi Ventures Aims Latest Funding At Supply Chain Transparency

Citi Ventures announced an investment in supply chain management and business intelligence startup Contguard on Wednesday (April 4).

Citi Ventures, along with Canaan Partners Israel, provided an undisclosed amount of funding to Contguard, which said it will use the investment to focus on scale and technology development. The company enables other businesses to gain greater control and insight into product shipments.

Citing World Trade Organization and International Maritime Organization data, Contguard said more than half a trillion dollars worth of manufactured goods move throughout global supply chains without control or oversight from supply chain managers. This leads to hundreds of billions of dollars lost, the firm said.

Contguard developed an Internet of Things (IoT) shipment monitoring solution to provide supply chain managers with data and business intelligence for manufacturers and suppliers, enhancing the transparency and control of their own supply chains.

“Contguard addresses this need with a unique end-to-end service built on top of a cloud-based AI,” explained the company’s Co-Founder and CEO Yiftach Nativ in a statement. “We’re excited to be partnering with Citi Ventures to power the next generation of the digital supply chain.”

“International trade is ripe for modernization leveraging advancements in IoT and AI,” added Citi Ventures Managing Director, Ventures Investing, Luis Valdich in another statement. “We are excited to invest in Contguard, whose logistics technology provides the transparency necessary to optimize container shipping supply chains.”

Earlier this year, Citi Ventures targeted another B2B startup, HighRadius, a B2B payments and receivables management company. Similarly, Citi Ventures did not reveal exactly how much it placed in the company, which also saw PNC backing the firm.

A lack of supply chain transparency is one of the largest challenges for industry professionals. Research published in February by the Association for Supply Chain Management and the Institute of Management Accountants found supply chain professionals struggle to analyze costs and to establish relationships with other departments in their enterprise, like finance and accounting. This leads to nearly half (44 percent) of professionals surveyed saying they lack operational data to adequately assess costs.