The sweet spot for inventory management is to spend the minimum amount to have adequate stock for customer orders. There is no shortage of software to help with this. But there’s also much innovation in inventory management, to address the realities of sophisticated analytics, multiple sales channels, unsold items, and shipping and logistics.
In this post, I’ll address nine startups that are disrupting the inventory management space.
9 Startups for Inventory Management
Blubirch. Blubirch focuses on reverse logistics. It deals with the products that are returned by customers and offers a solution to resell those products. The company is based in India. It launched in 2014 and has received $2 million in funding.
Blubirch Mobile App
Celect. Celect focuses on inventory optimization. It uses predictive analytics and artificial intelligence to optimize inventory in a physical store or warehouse. The company is based in Boston and, since its launch in 2013, has received $15.2 million in funding. Its goal is to build the world’s first data-driven, cloud-based “customer choice modeling suite” that helps merchandisers, retail planners, and inventory analysts better determine “what to put where.”
Inturn. Inturn launched in 2013 in New York. It focuses on buying and selling excess inventory. Its platform empowers brands and retailers with automated workflow tools, a price optimization engine, and business intelligence. The service also helps negotiate an agreement for inventory and pricing between the buyers and the sellers. The company has raised over $36 million in funding.
Nextail. Nextail’s focus is on optimizing apparel and fashion inventory via sophisticated analytics and algorithms. Its solution helps retailers maintain full prices for their products by optimizing inventory allocation, replenishment, and store transfers. Nextail manages over 100,000 SKUs across 2,500 stores. The company is based in Spain. It has raised $2 million since launching in 2014.
Pointy. Pointy helps brick-and-mortar retailers bring their products online, to drive online revenue and generate more foot traffic to the stores. To do this, Pointy sells a device that links to bar code scanners and cash registers. Once products are scanned, the device posts these products to the Pointy website, which has been optimized for Google. When consumers search for products, those products show up on Google’s organic search results, which drives traffic to the retailer’s physical stores. The company has raised $7.2 million in funding since launching in 2014.
ShoppinPal. ShoppinPal has inventory management solutions that streamline stock replenishment, cataloging, and integrations with vendors. The company is based in India and has raised over $1.5 million in funding since launching in 2012.
Shopventory. Shopventory is based in California. It focuses on real-time inventory and catalog management. Retailers can export their sales transactions into Shopventory to create a list of products, which can then be used to add photos, create product bundles, and manage inventory. Shopventory integrates with Square, Shopify, and PayPal. The company has raised over $2 million in funding since its launch in 2013.
Skupos. Skupos launched in 2016. It focuses on real-time inventory management for storeowners and distributors. Retailers can build orders from their distributors in minutes, using live inventory and sales data. Distributors get real-time insight into store inventory levels, in-process orders, and product velocity to understand consumer product needs before they happen. Skupos has raised about $4.5 million in funding.
Unleashed. Unleashed was founded in 2009. It focuses on real-time inventory management. It integrates with other platforms, such as Magento, Shopify, and Salesforce. The company is based in New Zealand and has clients in multiple verticals, including coffee roasting, brewing, food manufacturing, and retail. It has raised over $20 million in funding.