Fountain9 raises $1.9 mn in seed funding led by 021 Capital, Y Combinator
2 min read 07 Jul 2021, 05:07 PM ISTThe funding will be used to enhance the intelligence of their demand sensing engine, strengthen its product offerings and expand into global markets
PremiumMumbai: Fountain9, an innovative AI-led startup in the predictive inventory planning space, has raised $1.9 million in seed funding.
Prominent investors in the company, founded by two former Google employees, include Binny Bansal-backed 021 Capital, Y Combinator, Kunal Bahl and Rohit Bansal-backed Titan Capital, US-based new-age VC firm Globevestor, Harvard Seed Fund and climate change mission-driven German investment firm Blue Impact Ventures. Marquee angel investors -- ex-YC partners -- Holly Liu, Tracy Young and Carnegie Mellon Alumni, were also part of the round.
The company is currently focusing on brands in the F&B, e-commerce and retail space in India. The funding will be used to enhance the intelligence of their demand sensing engine, strengthen its product offerings and expand into global markets.
In today’s business scenario, most food & beverages companies (F&B) are looking to grow rapidly and ensure they are reducing their environmental impact. Fountain9 focuses on helping such F&B businesses transform their inventory operations in a smarter manner with their flagship product Kronoscope.
Kronoscope is an AI-powered inventory optimization solution that continuously analyses changes in demand patterns to enable their customers to sell more and waste less.
“Globally, about $260 billion worth of food gets wasted because inventory decisions worth millions of dollars are still made using spreadsheets and heuristics. Inventory planning in the food space comes at an environmental cost and such wastage can be prevented with better prediction of future demand. Kronoscope’s state of the art demand sensing is capable of predicting short and long-term demands with great precision to ensure businesses generate maximum ROI with minimum stock wastage," said Niki Khokale, co-founder and CEO, Fountain9.
Innovation is at the heart of Fountain9’s approach to solve the global issue of food wastage. While the sophisticated algorithms ensure that optimal results are achieved by the organizations, equal emphasis is put on ease of use to ensure better user adoption. The company’s customer-first approach has resulted in 5X growth in ARR since the time they launched Kronoscope toward the end of last year.
The pandemic has brought immense shifts in supply chains. Uncertainties on the demand and supply side have made traditional planning processes obsolete. The company has been helping F&B clients respond faster to changing consumer needs and keep their inventory costs under control.
The dynamic business environment has made manual methods to create demand predictions and replenishment plans completely redundant. Fountain9 is a preferred solution partner for leading F&B and retail organizations that are looking for end-to-end automation solutions to achieve accurate and agile demand and inventory planning.
