Nowports, a Mexican logistics company from Monterrey, Nuevo León, has secured a US$150 million Series C investment, making it the new Mexican unicorn. With these new funds raised, its valuation rose to US$1.1 billion.
SoftBank Latin America Fund led this round, and investors such as Tiger Global, Foundation Capital, Monashees, Soma Capital, Broadhaven Ventures, Mouro Capital, Tencent, and Base10 Partners participated. Entrepreneurs such as Daniel Voguel of Bitso, Ricardo Amper of Incode, Alex Bouaziz of Deel, and Roger Laughlin of Kavak also participated.
The startup had raised a US$60 million Series B a few months ago, one of the largest in Latin America. In the first quarter of 2022 alone, Nowports started operations in Panama, opened offices in Chile and Colombia, and has ten active offices in seven countries.
With these new funds, the startup plans to expand its reach to more cities in the countries where it already operates, especially Brazil, Mexico, and Chile. The funds will also be used to hire more talent with an emphasis on engineering and technology.
Nowports is focused on automating warehouses and shipments with sensors, tracking shipments in real-time. It seeks to be the logistics intermediation option for its clients, who move between 10 and 15 ocean containers per month and come from the retail, automotive, and manufacturing industries.
The startup was founded by Mexican Alfonso De Los Ríos and Uruguayan Maximiliano Casal when they were 19 and 27 years old. It currently has close to 300 full-time employees across seven countries.
With this round, Nowports joins the club of Mexican unicorns such as Clip and Kavak and positions itself as one of the most valuable companies in Monterrey and Mexico. In addition, Nowports became the first logistics unicorn from Spanish-speaking LatAm.
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