Toronto-based Centro, the automated inventory control center for growing ecommerce brands, has raised $2MM in pre-seed funding led by Ripple Ventures and 2048VC, with participation from Valia Ventures and Comma Capital. Centro’s angels and notable advisors include individuals from WeMakeWebsites, Canada Goose, and Uber, respectively. This round of capital will help the platform expand its selection of offerings to include forecasting and procurement automation features to kick off new marketing initiatives throughout North America.
The global pandemic saw an unprecedented wave of new business growth within the ecommerce space. However, the systems used to keep track of inventory across multiple warehouses have failed to keep up with the demand of many scaling brands. By integrating Centro as an inventory control center, brands increase their revenue and save precious man hours by driving more sales with fully-stocked inventory.
“Prior to founding Centro with Jamyang, I was leading inventory operations at SSENSE, an online luxury multi-brand retailer with a worldwide customer base. When the global pandemic hit, I experienced firsthand how delicate the global supply chain truly was,” says Centro Co-Founder, Andrew Liu. “While trying to adapt to rapid change across supply and demand, I found there was an inherent lack of inventory tools for modern brands. Jamyang, who was working as a strategist at Shopify at the time, validated this same narrative at other large-scale companies so we set out to shake up the inventory ops space.”
“By offering automated inventory and supply chain tools for brands at any scale, Centro has an immediate impact on a brand’s bottom line,” says Jamyang Tenzin, Centro CEO and Co-Founder. “Centro helps ecommerce retailers quickly and efficiently stay on top of inventory supplies and plan for peak sales windows to maximize revenue opportunities. We’ve found that growing brands will face on average $120,000+ in unforeseen risk across their supply chain, and this is rapidly multiplying with the holidays approaching.”
Historically, the software tools available have been costly and therefore out of reach for many growing ecommerce brands. Centro is easy to scale, simple to use, and condenses inventory, procurement, and risk management into a central hub, allowing brands to fully unlock their operational potential and efficiencies. With Centro, anyone can become an expert operator so retailers can focus on driving sales and growing their brand.
“Centro is perfectly timed to address the fashion retail sector’s escalating demand for a centralized inventory hub. As the pioneer in SaaS solutions for inventory risk management and logistics, automation is fueling the platform’s expansion and unlocking valuable revenue streams,” says Dom Lau, Partner at Ripple Ventures. “With a top-tier team specializing in retail inventory, Centro is delivering a game-changing solution precisely when supply chain challenges are plaguing the retail industry.”
“Inventory lies at the heart of every retailer’s operation, and also presents one of the oldest challenges in retail. Properly accounting for and managing inventory is just plain hard, due to supply chain disruptions, production delays, and unexpected spikes in demand,” states Neha Khera, Partner at 2048VC. “The team at Centro has lived and breathed this problem, and their data-first approach, coupled with an inventory control center, is truly game-changing.”
