Tuesday, 20 February 2024, Bengaluru, India
Techtaka, a South Korean company, streamlines online shopping and provides third-party shipping services to e-commerce businesses. In its latest funding round, Techtaka raises $9.5 million (12.6 billion KRW) through a Series B, with Altos Ventures as the sole investor.
By entrusting Techtaka with supply chain management tasks such as order packing, shipping, and warehousing, users can focus on product development and marketing for their e-commerce ventures. The firm also offers a SaaS operating system to streamline online merchants’ supply chain and logistics processes.
Techtaka was created in May 2020 by Soo Young Yang (CEO), a software developer who had worked at Coupang and Amazon, and Kyung Wook Lee (CTO), a former employee of Coupang. ARGO, the company’s fulfillment service, was introduced in March 2021.
Yang explained to TechCrunch that he worked directly for the e-commerce behemoths and knew personally how crucial quick delivery services are to consumers. To provide prompt and dependable logistics services, he founded Techtaka based on his knowledge and passion for optimization and logistics.
Yang claims that one of Techtaka’s main marketing strategies is its next-day delivery service, which allows clients to place orders by midnight for deliveries that arrive the next day. The three-year-old firm has been merged with Naver’s SmartStore, which, along with Coupang, has led South Korea’s e-commerce sector since July of last year. (Coupang maintains its fulfillment facilities, whereas Naver enhances its fulfillment offering through partnerships with logistics and fulfillment firms such as Techtaka.) After collaborating with Naver, the startup’s CFO, Steve Kim, told TechCrunch that sales and client base significantly grew. In South Korea, it presently has around 170 customers.
The company plans to keep growing its alliances with sales channels and marketplaces in Southeast Asia, the United States, and South Korea. According to Kim, Techtaka, a warehouse in Seattle, has begun assisting Korean sellers in selling their goods on Amazon. The company also intends to link with international markets such as Shopify and Amazon.
“We introduced Korean e-commerce sellers to Amazon, starting in May 2023, to test our service in the United States,” Kim stated. “We intend to grow this business in the United States as soon as we finish the process for an official Amazon partner.”
With the most recent funding, Techtaka has raised $18 million (23.6 billion KRW), which it will use to expand its service for online retailers, hire employees, and develop its technology.
Techtaka’s solution uses artificial intelligence to evaluate shipment trends, allowing users to forecast sales, orders, and stock levels. Additionally, Argo’s AI technology suggests packing and the best routes for delivery (transportation management system) and warehouses (warehouse management system). It uses an AI camera to identify operational errors. According to Techtaka’s internal study, the supply chain process was 20% faster thanks to the company’s optimization algorithm, according to Yang.
Additionally, the business has teamed up with LG CNS, the IT solutions division of the massive Korean electronics company LG, to introduce LG’s collaborative robotic service—which involves people picking up packages—to the warehouses. Kim, TechCrunch, Techtaka, and LG CNS intend to introduce a Robot-as-a-Service (RaaS) business model to enhance warehouse operations.
The business established a warehouse in South Korea with 17,000 square meters of storage capacity earlier this month. As of right now, it employs 76 people. Prior sponsors of the project include Lotte Ventures, Kakao Ventures, and Naver D2SF.
(Information Source: Techcrunch.com)
