AI-powered smart supply chain management platform Calico has received $2.1 million in a seed funding round led by the Serena Williams-founded VC firm Serena Ventures.
“We’re excited to partner with this world-class team on their mission to help brands take back control of their supply chain,” said tennis superstar Serena Williams, who also founded the fashion brand S By Serena in a statement. “I have experienced the exact problem Calico is solving and have rarely come across a business as in tune with the industry’s challenges and limitations as Calico. It’s a category-defining product that will have an outsized impact on retail, and there couldn’t be a more critical time to help them succeed.”
Calico offers an end-to-end platform for product development, merchandising and purchasing, complemented by a manufacturing network that has been vetted for greater ease and transparency. The company says that its brand partners have not only reduced production errors but were also able to increase speed-to-market by 25%.
“Supply chains are notoriously slow, fragmented and analog,” said Kathleen Chan, CEO of Calico in a statement. “Last year alone demonstrated how fragile supply chains are across the world and how desperately a solution is needed. This new round of investment will help Calico solve these challenges through our platform and factory network. Our partners at Serena Ventures have such deep expertise on the intricacies of brands that their counsel and investment will unlock exponential growth for Calico.”
In addition to Serena Ventures, investors in this funding round included Maple VC, Inovia Capital, Hyphen Capital and a group of early Shopify employees. Other investors include Allen Shim, former CFO of Slack, Jeremy Lai, CEO of Italic, and Deborah Liu, CEO of Ancestry. Calico has now reached $2.15 million of total funding.
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