Backbone raised about $14M in seed funding for supply chain software inspired by mesh networks
- ByStartupStory | April 15, 2022
Forecasting, also known as demand variability, for businesses reliant on the global supply chain has long been a hurdle. In a survey, inter-revenues in the range of $500 to over $1 billion — pegged variability as the top challenge that they faced. Including elevated e-commerce volume, impact shipping and raw materials availability, predicting supply chain volatility has only grown more difficult as pandemic-related shocks.
Inspired by the way wireless mesh networks function, Vic Patil thinks the solution lies in a “mesh” — specifically what he calls a “supply mesh”. In order to enable companies to respond to supply chain disruptions by surfacing replacement options, including vendors, that’s the product Backbone, the startup Patil helped to co-found, is selling: a platform has been designed.
Today Backbone announced that it raised $14 million in seed funding from Nautilus Ventures, 12/12 Ventures, and individual investors in order to prove out its technology. The capital raised will be used To onboard new customers, expand into new markets and develop the company’s supply mesh technology as it accelerates growth globally, the capital raised will be used, said Patil in a report via email.
Alongside Rajesh Chandran in 2017, Patil co-founded Backbone, which is based in San Francisco. Patil spent time as a software engineer at Intuit before moving to Heighten, a sales tech company while Chandran is an Oracle and NetSuite veteran who’s launched several AI startups. After it was acquired by LinkedIn in 2017, Patil stayed on at Heighten.
In several supply chain-dependent brands prior to starting Backbone, Patil and Chandran became investors, which is when they realized even small hiccups, like shipping delays, could be expensive in order to recover from. To provide greater visibility into their personal investments was the motivation behind Backbone but it dawned on Patil and Chandran that the product might be scalable to other industries.
Backbone, which initially engaged with tracks production compliance, cannabis and hemp suppliers, yields and audit reporting data in one place. To a browser-based, visual dashboard, the platform translates the components of a company’s supply chain, where it tries to calculate the costs associated with items in order to predict how profitable they’ll be, accounting for supply chain variability.
To route around supply chain issues, like material shortages and truck stoppages, as they’re happening, Patil emphasizes that Backbone can recommend possible solutions. Along with Backbone’s ability to customize for regulated industries like pharma and agriculture, he sees this as the platform’s key differentiator.
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