San Francisco-based Ware, a startup that combines its proprietary software with Skydio 2 autonomous drones to track and manage inventory in warehouses, recently announced a seed round of funding. Warehousing is currently a $1.9 trillion industry. UP Partners, Bloomberg Beta, 2048 Ventures, Uber angel investor Tom McInerney, and Skydio CEO Adam Bry participated in the $2.5 million of funding.
“Understanding the true state of inventory in today’s massive warehouses requires a significant amount of manual labor and time-consuming routines,” says Ware’s Chief Executive Officer Ian Smith. “Our investors understand how Ware is meeting this challenge. Their support is especially gratifying amidst the uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 and the stress it has exerted on global supply chains.”
Because of COVID-19, e-commerce sales have boomed. U.S. sales have increased by 43% in September, year-over-year, according to Adobe Analytics. While it’s good news for online retailing, it has put incredible stressors on Warehouse logistics. Ware was created as an enterprise solution for organizations to streamline their warehouse inventory tracking and tasks. Here is how it works:
- Autonomous drones self-charge on nests that live in the warehouse. The drones take off when scheduled, capture required data, and return to their nest to recharge.
- The data is uploaded from the drones to Ware’s cloud. The software processes it and extrapolates critical insights including inventory counts and bin locations.
- Now that the warehouse is digitized, managers and other stakeholders can easily access accurate, up-to-date information on inventory and any other actionable items.
“We are thrilled to be partnered with Ian, Joe, and the entire Ware team. Ware’s innovations are not only streamlining a very time-consuming and error-prone part of every business that handles goods, they’re also answering the call to improve efficiency and decrease cost in the increasingly dynamic and higher throughput supply chain,” said Ben Marcus, UP Partners co-founder and managing partner.
For more information, visit http://getware.com. They are also hiring.