It’s Good Friday and the beginning of Passover, so I’ll keep it short today.
This week’s supply chain and logistics news was dominated by investment news, including Sumeru Equity Partners’ investment in 3Gtms (a Talking Logistics sponsor).
As I wrote back in October, when it comes to transportation management systems (TMS), there is always something new to talk about. The scope and capabilities of TMS, as well as the vendor landscape, have changed significantly over the years, and the systems continue to evolve. The same is true for the transportation market and the types of challenges and opportunities that shippers and third-party logistics providers face.
The terms of the investment were not disclosed, but according to 3Gtms CEO Mitch Weseley, the money will enable the company “to aggressively scale our product innovation strategy, hire top talent and continue our core focus on a customer-centric culture.”
Over the past year, there have been several big deals in the TMS market, such as Summit Partners acquiring MercuryGate and E2open acquiring Cloud Logistics. As I wrote in April 2016, the TMS market is becoming barbell shaped, with some solutions becoming broader, more integrated, and feature-rich (multi-mode, multi-geography, complex optimization), while others are offering more limited capabilities, but with a stronger focus on ease of use, faster deployment, affordable and transparent pricing, and meeting the needs of the small and mid-sized business (SMB) market. If you’re vendor in the middle? Well, that’s a difficult place to be today.
Moving on to the rest of the news this week:
- 3Gtms Announces Strategic Investment by Sumeru Equity Partners
- On-demand warehousing startup Flowspace raises $12 million in Series A investment (FreightWaves)
- Logistics startup Zencargo raises $20M to take on the antiquated business of freight forwarding (TechCrunch)
- project44 and Reliance Partners Collaborate to Deliver Real-Time Cargo Insurance Quoting and Purchasing
- Echo Global Logistics Launches EchoDrive, a Carrier App and Web Portal
- Announcing Convoy Go, a nationwide Drop & Hook marketplace
- Amazon is delivering packages out of ‘carnival’ tents in a mad race to catch up to UPS and FedEx (Business Insider)
- Warehouse Availability Stabilizes in Tight U.S. Logistics Market (WSJ – sub. req’d)
- Retail Briefing: E-commerce companies are bringing logistics in-house (Digiday)
- Ace Hardware rolls out buy online, deliver from store (DigitalCommerce360)
- To Woo Shoppers, Stores Are Accepting Competitors’ Returns (WSJ – sub. req’d)
- New Digital Container Shipping Association is aiming to make a splash (The Loadstar)
Song of the Week: “The Spot” by Your Smith
