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tektakaA South Korean online shopping fulfillment startup that provides third-party logistics services for e-commerce sellers has raised $9.5 million (12.6 billion KRW) in a Series B round of funding from sole investor, Altos Ventures.
The organization helps e-commerce sellers manage the supply chain, from warehousing, order packing, and shipping, so that TechTaka users can focus on product and marketing. The startup also offers a SaaS operating system to optimize the supply chain and logistics operations of online sellers.
Soo Young Yang (CEO), who worked as a software engineer at Amazon and Coupang, and Kyung Wook Lee (CTO), who previously worked at Coupang, founded TechTaka in May 2020 and its fulfillment service Started. argo In March 2021.
Yang told TechCrunch that he has first-hand experience at e-commerce giants showing how important fast delivery services are to customers. His expertise and interest in logistics and optimization led him to start TechTaka to provide quick and reliable logistics services.
According to Yang, TechTaka offers its users next-day delivery (order by midnight for packages arriving the next day), which is key to attracting customers. Since July last year, the three-year-old startup has been integrated with Never’s SmartStore, which is leading South Korea’s e-commerce market with Coupang. (near Coupang has its own fulfillment centers, and Naver strengthens its fulfillment service through collaboration with logistics and fulfillment companies like TechTaca.) The startup’s CFO Steve Kim told TechCrunch that its performance in terms of revenue and customers has increased significantly after partnering with Naver. . It currently has more than 170 customers in South Korea.
The organization will continue to expand its partnerships with markets and sales channels not only in South Korea but also in the US and Southeast Asia. TechTaka, which has a warehouse in Seattle, has started helping Korean sellers sell their products on Amazon, Kim said, adding that it plans to integrate with global marketplaces such as Amazon and Shopify.
“We tested our service in the US by introducing Korean e-commerce sellers to Amazon starting in May 2023,” Kim said. “We plan to expand this business to the US as soon as we complete the process to become an official Amazon partner”
The latest capital, which brings its total raised to $18 million (23.6 billion KRW), will enable TechTaka to advance its technology, expand its service to online merchants and hire staff.
TechTaka has incorporated artificial intelligence into its system to analyze shipment patterns to enable users to predict stock, orders and sales. Argo’s AI technology also recommends packaging and optimized routes for warehouses (warehouse management system) and delivery (transportation management system). It detects operation mistakes Through AI-powered cameras. TechTaka claims its internal research shows the company’s optimization algorithms have saved time in the supply chain process by up to 20%, Yang said.
Additionally, the startup has partnered with LG CNS, the IT solutions arm of Korean electronics giant LG, to use LG’s collaborative robotic service for workers to pick up parcels and deliver them to warehouses. Kim told TechCrunch that TechTaca, together with LG CNS, plans to launch a RaaS, or robots-as-a-service, business model to optimize warehouse operations.
Earlier this month, the startup established a warehouse in South Korea representing 17,000 square meters of storage space. As of today it has 76 employees. Its previous backers include Naver D2SF, Kakao Ventures, and Lotte Ventures.
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