Roambee raises $2 million to secure internet of things supply chain

Roambee uses the internet of things, or making everyday objects smart and connected, to help companies track assets through the supply chain. Now the Santa Clara, California-based startup has raised $2 million from MDI Ventures, Telkom Indonesia’s corporate venture capital firm.

To date, Roambee has raised nearly $10 million for its business of tracking enterprise assets using an array of hardware, software, and sensor data. The company uses proprietary analytics, predictive reporting, and open application program interfaces (APIs) to find out where a customer’s assets are in real time, whether those assets are being shipped someplace or are sitting in a warehouse.

Roambee will provide prebuilt software-as-a-service (SaaS) applications that include wireless portable sensor devices and cloud-based software, robust reporting, and predictive analytics. The solution will be included on T-Systems’ scalable platform and offers access to a global infrastructure of secure datacenters and cloud solutions from a wide partner ecosystem.

Roambee’s software is also able to detect whether a shipment is coming by land, air, or sea. When a shipment is in transit by air or sea, the device can go to sleep, while still gathering data. This adaptability extends battery life, and the power management module allows Roambee to last 90-100 days on a single charge.

MDI’s investment will be used to fuel Roambee’s entry into Indonesia and Southeast Asia’s booming logistics market. Roambee’s first customers in the region will include Telkom Indonesia, the largest telecommunication services company in the country.

“The opportunity in Indonesia is huge,” said Roambee CEO Sanjay Sharma, in a statement. “It’s one of the largest in the world, with almost 24 percent of the country’s GDP spent on logistics. With MDI’s investment, Roambee gains a significant advantage in quickly assuming a leadership position in driving the enterprise digital transformation of Indonesia across supply chain shipment and asset monitoring visibility.”

Global investment dynamics are changing, with Asian VC funds, such as those from MDI, outpacing U.S. VC investments for the first time. Related research shows that Indonesia’s logistics market is expected to reach USD $240 billion by 2021.

After reviewing over 7,000 companies in the IoT smart logistics space, MDI Ventures chose to invest in Roambee due to its solution’s ability to track, trace, and monitor in real time through a broad array of sensors while simultaneously performing important analytics and predictive reporting.

“Roambee’s end-to-end solution is best suited to meet the challenges of Indonesia’s varied supply chain ecosystem, which we will see realized when implemented as part of Telkom Indonesia’s enterprise services later this year,” said MDI Ventures CEO Nicko Widjaja, in a statement.

Roambee was founded in 2013.