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Kardinal, the route optimization solution, raises 10 million in Series A with venture capital funds Benhamou Global Ventures as lead investor, accompanied by Cap Horn Invest and Plug and Play Ventures, as well as its historical shareholder Serena. Created in 2015, the Parisian company publishes software to optimize the transport operations of logisticians in order to help them reduce their costs and improve their environmental impact.
With this Series A, Kardinal aims to become the European leader in optimizing last-mile logistics. For this, the company will deploy in new European geographies, particularly in Germany, which represents 25% of the continent’s logistics market share. To support its growth, Kardinal plans to double its workforce and recruit 25 people by the end 2022, mainly engineering, sales and customer success profiles.
Kardinal was created by Jonathan Bouaziz, Hugo Farizon and Cédric Hervet, two entrepreneurs and a PhD student in mathematics driven by the common vision of more efficient and more sustainable logistics. The company had made a first round of 2 million euros in 2019 to develop its SaaS software. In 2020, Raphaël de Castilla, a recognized expert in the IT solutions market for logistics, joined the company and now holds the position of CRO to put his vision and expertise at the service of Kardinal’s development.
In 2021, the company achieved 500% growth by signing some big names in logistics such as DPD Group, the Sterne group, the Mauffrey group, and Séché Environnement. The key for Kardinal’s customers is major operational gains of up to 30% reduction in operational costs, and as much in terms of CO2 emissions. An impact recognized by the GreenTech label from the Ministry of Ecological and Solidarity Transition obtained by the company in 2016.
Thanks to 5 years of R&D carried out by a team of 4 doctoral students in mathematics, Kardinal has proprietary algorithms whose operation continuously adapts perfectly to the new challenges of immediacy in the logistics market.
“This fundraising will allow us to accelerate and continue to strengthen our competitive advantage. We have proven our added value on the French market by collaborating with big names in logistics. The next step is to consolidate our go-to-market strategy in Europe, in particular through the recruitment of key people. Our short-term ambition is to become the leader in last mile logistics optimization in Europe in order to be able to tackle the American market within 12 months. I am convinced that we will be able to achieve this thanks to our team, and the confidence of our investors: Benhamou Global Ventures, Cap Horn Invest, Plug and Play Ventures and Serena.”
Since Amazon’s arrival on the market, companies operating last mile logistics have come under great pressure to become more digital in a context where delivery packages are soaring, constraints are increasing, customer demands are growing, and environmental impact is a major concern. At the current rate, last mile volumes will have increased by 78% by 2030, adding 6 million tons of CO2 to the atmosphere. Kardinal provides the missing technology to run new, more flexible, sustainable and efficient organizations.
For Sarah Benhamou, BGV’s director: “Kardinal fits perfectly with BGV’s Enterprise 4.0 vision: AI, enterprise software specialized in the logistics sector, intelligent automation, and a clear return on investment for the company. For several months now, we have been taking a close look at logistics, a sector that is changing significantly with the rise of online sales. Logistics optimization is necessary, but many delivery companies have been disappointed by previous route optimizations they have tried. The decision to invest in Kardinal was obvious once we understood the startup’s secret formula, a proprietary mathematical language capable of solving the specifics of each customer using the same algorithms, and in real time. We were impressed with the team, which is highly technically proficient, with strong engineering, AI and machine learning backgrounds, as well as expertise in the logistics industry. We are very pleased and proud to support the entire Kardinal team in its development, and especially on an international scale as BGV has a strong presence around the world.“
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About Kardinal:
Kardinal is a technology company that supports logistics players in the digitalization and optimization of their transport operations. Kardinal thus provides its customers with innovative software solutions dedicated to performance optimization and decision support for more efficient, more agile and more sustainable logistics.
Its route optimization solution (ARO, for Always-On Route Optimization) has the particularity of operating continuously, allowing integration into the heart of existing processes and more realistic routes, in perfect coherence with the reality on the ground
More recently, Kardinal has tackled the optimization of routes for courier players and has developed TAO (Territory Analytics & Optimization), a unique on the market, based on a probabilistic approach resulting from the latest advances in applied mathematics.
For more information: https://kardinal.ai/
About BGV:
BGV is a global venture capital firm with deep Silicon Valley roots and an exclusive focus on Enterprise 4.0 technology innovation. The partnership sources companies from innovation hubs around the world and deploys financial and human capital from seed stage to IPO. With offices in Palo Alto, Tel Aviv, Paris, and Mumbai, BGV has championed a cross-border venture investing model with a portfolio representing businesses in the US, Israel, Europe, and India. Visit www.bgv.vc to learn more.
Press contact:
Archetype Agency
Rémi Fresnel – [email protected]
Hugo Dufour – [email protected]
