In this edition of Localogy’s Local Radar, we examine newly funded companies Tive, Rounded & Karmen
1. Tive
One factor that continues to challenge SMBs is shipping things. Though it doesn’t apply to all SMBs, it’s certainly central to SMBs that engage in eCommerce, or B2B supplies. For the latter, there’s a surprising lack of transparency when it comes to the whereabouts of shipped items. Though there’s standard carrier tracking, that only goes so far. Tive wants to change this with single-use tracking devices that are linked to its cloud platform. That lets SMBs track their shipments with better granularity. This comes in handy when communicating with clients and partners about shipping ETAs, as well as identifying delays or bottlenecks in logistical systems. With this value proposition, Tive recently raised $40 million in a Series C round co-led by World Innovation Lab and Sageview Capital. This brings its total funding to $120 million. The company will use the new money to accelerate its product development and geographic expansion. And it’s well on its way with 900 customers in high-value verticals like healthcare.
2. Rounded
AI voice assistants and agents continue to be dangled by the tech press as the next big productivity inflection for businesses. If that vision materializes, SMBs are arguably best positioned to benefit from AI agents. Though they’re slower to adopt emerging tech, they are famously resource-constrained. That’s where AI agents can have a real impact in offloading rote back-office tasks or even customer-facing interactions. But for all that to happen, AI agents have to be customizable and trained to a given business’s products and operational nuances. That’s where Rounded comes in. The company offers a platform that lets businesses build their own voice agents. These can do things like answer basic questions (think: hours of operation) or perform more advanced administrative tasks like helping customers book an appointment. For example, Rounded currently serves hospitals whose AI voice agents can answer calls and onboard patients for upcoming surgeries, including key information about allergies and other inputs for the anesthesiologist. To fuel this mission, Rounded has raised $620,000 from UC Berkeley’s deep tech accelerator SkyDeck and several business angels.
3. Karmen
Cash flow continues to be one of the biggest factors challenging SMBs. This is what Karmen is trying to solve with its platform that offers short-term loans to SMBs that face a working capital crunch. The value it provides happens on a few levels. For one, its platform can ingest several signals to evaluate risk in a given lending situation. It does this through integrations with accounting and ERP platforms so that it can tap into a given SMBs operational realities to evaluate its loan eligibility. This de-risks and optimizes the platform to a certain degree. It also serves as a sort of marketplace by linking SMBs in need of funding to its fintech partners that specialize in SMB lending. Altogether it’s a highly-tuned software-heavy approach to managing SMB lending. According to the company, loans range from $15,000 to a few million, with terms that range from a few months to two years. The company itself recently raised $9.4 million from Seventure Partners and others.
Header image credit: Venti Views on Unsplash
