Bezos Invests in Overseas Supply Chain Platforms Beacon and Ula

Digital supply chain platform Beacon announced on Monday it has raised over $50 million in an oversubscribed Series B round led by Northstar.vc with participation from Upper90 and existing investors 8VC, Expa, Amazon AMZN founder and Executive Chair Jeff Bezos, and founder, Chairman and CEO of Salesforce Marc Benioff. 

"At Northstar, we back technologies that have the potential to alter the trajectory of their respective industries, and Beacon's game-changing platform has the potential to transform supply chains globally. We are excited to partner with Beacon's world-class team as they continue to expand and create value for their customers," said Amir Karimpour, managing partner at Northstar.vc.

Beacon started the year listed as one of London's 50 fastest-growing companies after experiencing 196% employee growth and opening a new, strategic office in Hong Kong to provide better customer service with a local presence in an area where a large portion of the cargo the company manages originates.

Beacon's platform. (Photo: Beacon)

Now, after 12 months of 12X revenue growth fueled by demand, Beacon looks to add to its team to expand into more markets and continue to add to its suite of tools to deploy global ocean, air and road freight management services including customs clearance, insurance data insights and trade financing needs.

"We are extremely pleased with the progress to  date, and this latest round of investment, from some of the leading names in business and technology, is an endorsement of our strategy and rapid growth," said co-founder and CEO Fraser Robinson, who prior to Beacon led business initiatives in Europe, the Middle East and Africa for Uber.

"We have seen high levels of demand throughout the pandemic, and in the last year, we have significantly grown our team, product, and geographical presence in order to meet this demand, while providing first-class customer service. These new funds will enable us to further accelerate growth by continuing to invest in our people and platform so that we can continue our mission to revolutionize the global supply chain," said Robinson.

Bezos confirms investment in Southeast Asia platform

On Sunday, rumors of an Indonesian e-commerce platform raising a new round of funds, with participation from Bezos, were confirmed.

The business-to-business marketplace announced it has raised $87 million in its recent Series B round co-led by Prosus Ventures, Tencent, and B-Capital with participation from Bezos' family group, Bezos Expeditions, Northstar group, AC Ventures, Citius, Lightspeed India, Sequoia Capital India, Quona Capital and Alter Global.

Launched in 2020, Ula uses technology to enable its 70,000 store owners in Indonesia to leverage its wholesale e-commerce marketplace to manage its supply chains, inventory, and working capital. 

Ula plans to use the new capital to expand operations throughout Southeast Asia and add offerings including buy-now-pay-later features.

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