Canada's Calico gets $2 million to revolutionise modern supply chains

Through their end-to-end operating system, Calico provides brands a single source of truth for their product development, merchandising and purchasing functions. Coupled with Calico's platform, is a sought after and extensively vetted manufacturing network that enables brands to stand up new product lines instantly. Brands using Calico have successfully reduced expensive production errors, accelerated time to market by 25 per cent, and partnered with some of the world’s most coveted manufacturers, the company said in a press release.

Joining Serena Ventures in the heavily oversubscribed seed round is Maple VC, Inovia Capital, Hyphen Capital and a group of early Shopify employees. The start-up has also garnered investments from leaders at renowned tech companies including Allen Shim, former CFO of Slack, Jeremy Lai, CEO of Italic and Deborah Liu, CEO of Ancestry. The company previously raised pre-seed funding from Forum Ventures. The new round brings Calico’s funding total to date to $2.15 million.

“We’re excited to partner with this world-class team on their mission to help brands take back control of their supply chain. 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,” Serena Williams, founder of Serena Ventures, who also runs her own fashion brand, S By Serena, said in a statement.

“Supply chains are notoriously slow, fragmented and analogue. 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,” Kathleen Chan, CEO of Calico, said.

ALCHEMPro News Desk (GK)