Dynamo Dispatch. A weekly update from Dynamo Ventures covering the latest and greatest in supply chain, mobility, and building venture-scale businesses.

💥 Have you seen any interesting startups recently? Introduce us.❤️ We would love your support. Please forward to friends and share on social media.🗞️ If you were forwarded this and found it interesting, please sign up.🎙 Check out Dynamo's podcast series, The Future of Supply Chain.

Weekly Commentary 💭

The Dynamo team is headed to the Big Apple this week for our annual Portfolio Day. If you’re in town and want to meet up, don’t hesitate to reach out! In other news, huge shoutout to the Logrock team for their recent raise. Trucking compliance isn’t the sexiest venture but it sure is vital. Congrats!

We Are Dynamo,

Clay, Santosh, Jon, and the rest of the Dynamo team

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Supply Chain 📦

🌟Sysco Moves Drivers To 4-Day Workweek In Bid To Improve Retention. The change, which applies to both truck drivers and warehouse associates, allows employees working overtime to come in for a fifth day instead of a sixth day. The announcement comes after the food distributor, which employs roughly 58K employees as of July last year, converted its delivery model to six days a week instead of five, which allows for better handling fluctuations of demand and increases asset utilization for its trucks and buildings. Despite the continuous shortage of drivers, a silver lining permeates the industry as Hiring For US Truckers Gains Momentum. For more insights on the trucking industry, check out this State Of The Industry White Paper.

AWS For Industry, But Better: The Railroad Investment Case. Despite numerous secular trends and environmental concerns conspiring against the rail industry for an astonishingly long time, railroads have found a way to fit into a just-in-time environment by rethinking their unit economics. More specifically, due to railroads’ cost advantage in intra-US transportation and monopolistic economics, the railroad industry represents a sort of royalty on the growth rate of domestic manufacturing. In other news, US railroad infrastructure projects secure $368M In Federal Aid to modernize and strengthen supply chains while Railroads Struggle To Fill Jobs.

Walmart Bets Its Stores Will Give It An Edge In Amazon eComm Duel. Walmart’s stores are being transformed into hubs for its eComm business, serving as launch pads for delivery drones, automated warehouses for online grocery orders, and departure locations for direct-to-fridge drop-offs. Eventually, these are expected to help pack and ship goods for individuals and independent companies that sell on Walmart’s third-party marketplace. Walmart’s eComm strategy and new Next-Gen Fulfillment Center Model aim to expand its assortment of merchandise, improve the customer experience, and increase the density of delivery routes. For more news in the retail industry, see Kroger’s New Digital Marketplace For Local Farm Produce.

Robots Innovate Chick-fil-A Delivery Experience. At a limited number of restaurants in California, Texas, and Florida, the restaurant chain aims to test delivery with Refraction AI’s autonomous robots. At their full potential, these delivery robots are expected to enhance operations and cut costs. With delivery reaching as much as 66% of some restaurants’ sales, digital advancements in delivery have become a necessity for maintaining growth and increasing restaurants’ awareness among local communities. Furthermore, companies are getting increasingly excited about new alternatives as Last Mile Gets Shorter and Delivery Looks To A Profitable Future.

SVT Robotics And Locus Robotics Join Together To Automate Warehouses. Both companies are partnering to develop and launch an out-of-box integration between their respective solutions to shorten integration time and complexity. More specifically, the connectivity from the SVT’s SOFTBOT Platform to LocusBots technology enables warehouses to fully integrate Locus AMRs in just a matter of days to begin optimizing their productivity and efficiency much more quickly. In other news, Robot Orders Surge Again In Q1 As Tech Grows More Affordable And Usable, while the World’s First Raspberry Picking Robot Cracks The Toughest Nut: Soft Fruit.

Bird Flu Brings Supply Gaps in Turkey This Summer. Large supply gaps for Jennie-O branded turkey products are expected in 3Q2022. The shortages anticipated in the coming months come as one of the worst-ever avian influenza outbreaks wipes out flocks across the US Midwest. The highly pathogenic avian influenza has so far affected nearly 38M birds in the US, hurting egg-laying hens and turkeys the most, with the disease largely being propagated by migrating wild birds that swarm above farms and leave droppings that get tracked into poultry houses. Other recent developments in the industry include Biden’s $2.1B Project To Strengthen Food Supply Chains and COVID-19 lockdowns and US port congestion Hampering US Agricultural Exports.

Trans-Pacific Blankings Persist Despite Shanghai Reopening. Even as Shanghai reopens after two months of COVID-19 lockdowns, challenges persist for US importers ahead of an expected earlier peak season. Trans-Pacific carriers may be adding capacity over the next 12 weeks, but they’re also continuing to blank sailings at the two major Chinese ports which have seen volumes decline due to trucking restrictions. As of last week, the sailing schedules of THE Alliance members — Hapag-Lloyd, HMM, Ocean Network Express, and Yang Ming — showed 36 blank sailings for Shanghai, compared to 46 blank sailings across all services at the start of May following a subsequent increase during the month to more than 60 canceled sailings. Moving forward, routings between Asia and the US East Coast are expected to see the most skipped voyages over the next four weeks. For more news and interesting reads on global supply chains, see US Races Ahead Of China To Top India’s Global Trade Chart and What Business Can Learn From Russia, Ukraine And The Semiconductor Shortage.

Mobility 🚗

Driverless Taxis Are Coming To The Streets Of San Francisco. California regulators gave Cruise permission to begin charging passengers for driverless rides in San Francisco. The original fleet will consist of just 30 EVs operating in less congested parts of the city. It is a kind of trial phase to allow regulators to observe how safe the tech is. Previously, Waymo had been allowed to drive AVs with backup human drivers. In this case. In other news, consider reading Pony.Ai Loses California AV Testing Permit and Dubai-Based Ride-Sharing Firm Swvl to Cut Third of Headcount.

American CEO Says The Airline Has Grounded 100 Planes Because It Doesn't Have Enough Pilots To Fly Them. American Airlines CEO Robert Isom says this is primarily due to a mismatch in supply and demand; demand for flights is high but the supply of pilots is way too low. American is planning on limiting some of the impact by flying larger planes to maximize the number of passengers per pilot. Regional carriers have been particularly impacted by the shortage as their pilots have moved to larger airlines. In other news, Mayhem Predicted For Travel This Summer and New Airbus Facility To Research Cryogenic Fuel Systems For Next-Gen Hydrogen Planes.

🌟Goldman Sachs Has Bad News For Metals Investors And Good News For EV Makers. High metal prices could cost the price of batteries used in EVs to increase for the first time in over ten years. This could push the end price up by $1.5K to $3K. The current average cost of an EV is around $66K. Goldman Sachs believes that thanks to the current rush to invest in mines for these metals that there should be an oversupply by 2023. Last year, the analysts estimated that automakers would have 23% more lithium than they could use by 2025. This is good news for the medium-term affordability of EVs. In related news, check out EV SPACs Are Facing A New Regulatory Speed Bump and Ford Wants To Restructure Its Dealership Model To Boost EV Sales.

The Big New Idea For Making Self-Driving Cars That Can Go Anywhere. Many AV automakers are planning on implementing reinforced learning into training their cars. One example is Wayve announcing its plan to work with Microsoft to train its AI on the giant’s supercomputer, expediting the process of getting the tech up to speed with human drivers. The strength of an AI-based method is its ability to learn relatively quickly, potentially increasing the ceiling of AV tech beyond what we’ve seen from current market leaders. In related news, check out Where The Billions Spent On Autonomous Vehicles By US And Chinese Giants Is Heading and Audi Addresses Autonomous Driving Concerns Like The “Trolley Problem” In A New Study.

The US Is About To Get Serious About EVs. We seem to have reached the tipping point where EVs transform from niche to high in demand. Car buyers have bought up twice as many EVs as the year before. There are a couple of reasons why EVs might have a medium-term ceiling in the US. A big question is whether this level of demand can keep up because of the lack of EV manufacturing and battery infrastructure in the country. In the long term, given current levels of investment, these concerns could level off and the US could become a major player in the EV market. In other news, consider reading GM Slashes Price Of 2023 Chevy Bolt, Making It The Cheapest EV In America and Where Is the Best Place to Buy and Own an EV?

May US Auto Sales: Ford, Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Subaru Post Declines. The seasonally adjusted, annualized rate of sales for May fell to a 2022 low of 12.81M. This is a sharp drop from last month as well as May 2021’s 17.12M rate. Toyota said volume dropped 27% last month, capping off the tenth straight monthly decline for the brand. Thanks to the supply constraints of the entire industry, automakers are just unable to find adequate options to match demand. In other news, What Business Can Learn From Russia, Ukraine And The Semiconductor Shortage and Eight Automakers Improve Emergency Response Guides For EV Battery Fires, Ntsb Says.

Ford To Invest $3.7B In US Factories, Add 6.2K Union Jobs In Push To Build More EVs. Ford is investing $3.7B on manufacturing in Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri to massively increase its EV production by 2026. The firm is planning on investing $1B on improving working conditions at its US factories to both increase worker satisfaction as well as attract talent proficient in EV making. A bulk of the investment will go towards converting part-time workers into full-time workers as well as general recruiting and hiring. In other news, look at Ford Unleashes Heavy Artillery Against Tesla and GM and CATL Will Supply Cylindrical Battery Cells For Next Gen BMW EVs.

Fundraises and M&A 💸

💥 LogRock Raises $3.5M Led By Dynamo Ventures. LogRock manages all aspects of compliance for trucking companies — from DQ files to Permits, from HoS to Maintenance Records. The company was started by two former Loadsmart employees, Hunter Yaw and Joao Bosco, who learned the vast amount of automation that could be applied to the supply chain industry. The funds will be used to continue growing its team and platform to automate carriers’ compliance processes.

Revamp Moto Raises $1M Led By Veda VC And Venture Catalysts. Revamp is an India-based electric two-wheeler manufacturer. The company came to the limelight in Shark Tank India, where it raised funds from Anupam Mittal and Aman Gupta. The funds will be used for hiring and product development.

NXRT Raises €2.1M Led By eQventure. NXRT is a startup developing immersive simulation software for mixed reality driving applications. The company has more than 30 customers, including Porsche, Hyundai, Audi, AVL, Rhomberg Sersa Vossloh GmbH, and Rail4mation AG. The funds will be used to expand its simulation platform for the automotive and railway sectors.

Huuva Raises €4.9M Led By General Catalyst. Huuva is a Helsinki-based startup that builds delivery-focused restaurant cohorts to bring new quality restaurant options to unserved neighborhoods. This round of funding comes eight months after Huuva secured €1M in a pre-seed round led by Lifeline Ventures. The funds will be used to ramp up its expansion in Central Europe and recruit more than 100 business and operations talent.

​​Felux Raises $19M Led By EquipmentShare. Felux is an online B2B marketplace and supply chain platform for steel and other metals. Additional investors include Signia Venture Partners, Suffolk Technologies, Expa, Lightbank, 8VC, and JumpStart Ventures. The funds will be used to accelerate its growth and product offerings, as well as its employee headcount in the coming months.

Upway Raises $25M Led By Exor Seeds And Sequoia Capital. Upway is a French startup that sells secondhand eBikes that have been refurbished and are ready to roll. The startup currently operates in France and Belgium. It will soon launch its marketplace in Germany, the Netherlands, and the US. By the end of 2022, the company will have three different warehouses.

FinditParts Raises $30M Led By Crestline Investors. FinditParts is an eComm marketplace servicing the commercial vehicle aftermarket industry. The company has achieved a 100% y/y revenue growth in Q1 2022. The funds will be used to expand its technology and digital content and significantly accelerate the growth of the team.

FarmWise Raises $45M Led By Fall Line Capital And Middleland Capital. FarmWise builds autonomous systems to streamline farm operations and increase food production efficiency. Additional investors include GV, Taylor Farms, Calibrate Ventures, Playground Global, SVG Ventures, and the venture arm of Wilbur Ellis. The funds will be used to accelerate its product roadmap.

Yummy Raises $47M Led By Anthos Capital. Yummy is a LATAM-based food delivery and ride-hailing app. Additional investors include Wind Ventures, JAM Fund, Soma Capital, Ethos Capital, and YC Continuity. According to the company, it has 2.5M registered users and processes 800K monthly transactions. Yummy will be focusing on expanding its coverage in the existing markets of Venezuela, Bolivia, Peru, and Panama with no immediate plans to enter new countries.

Astro Raises $60M Led By Accel, Citius, And Tiger Global. Astro is an Indonesia-based 15-minute grocery delivery platform. Additional investors include AC Ventures, Global Founders Capital, Lightspeed, and Sequoia Capital India. According to the company, revenues grew more than 10x over the past few months and downloads hit 1M. The funds will go towards user acquisition, product development and hiring more staff to add to its current team of 200.

Super Raises $70M Led By NEA. Super is an Indonesian social commerce startup focused on small towns and rural areas. According to its CEO, gross domestic product in rural Indonesia is up to five times lower than in Jakarta, yet the cost of consumer goods there is higher by up to 200% due to supply chain issues. By streamlining the supply chain and giving FMCG brands an easier way to reach consumers in rural areas, Super can lower the costs of goods. The funds will be used to expand across Indonesia.

Rimac Raises $536M Led By Softbank And Goldman Sachs. Rimac is a global EV developer and component supplier. The round includes an “eight-figure sum” from Porsche, which now owns 20% of the company. The funds will be used to hire talent, build a $200M campus, and develop and produce batteries, software and other components for EVs.

Lineage Logistics Acquires Turvo. Lineage, a temperature-controlled industrial REIT and logistics solutions provider has acquired Turvo, a provider of supply chain management, collaboration, and visibility software. The acquisition is part of Lineage’s ongoing strategy to invest in technologies capable of transforming the global food supply chain. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Turo Acquires OuiCar. Turo, a peer-to-peer car sharing marketplace has acquired OuiCar, a France-based car-sharing platform. The acquisition enables Turo to leverage OuiCar’s strong presence in France to support broader expansion plans in Europe and complements Turo’s existing offering across the US, UK, and Canada. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

UPS Acquires Delivery Solutions. UPS acquires Delivery Solutions, a same-day SaaS delivery management and orchestration technology company. Delivery Solutions will continue to operate with its current leadership as an agnostic, multi-carrier platform. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Wrench Acquires YourMechanic. Wrench, a startup that offers mobile car repair services has acquired competitor YourMechanic. The acquisition adds more than 350 technicians across 30 states to Wrench’s network. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.

SPAC Radar📡

Mobiv Acquisition Files For $100M IPO. Mobiv Acquisition is a blank check company targeting the EV industry in Asia and Europe. The company plans to raise $100M by offering 10M units at $10. At the proposed deal size, Mobiv Acquisition would command a market value of $130M.

Freightos In $435M Deal With Gesher I Acquisition Corp. Freightos is an Israeli-based freight booking and payment platform. In addition to the proposed merger with Gesher, the combined entity has obtained $80M in capital commitments. The funds will be used to further scale the business, driving transaction value and improving margins.

Business Building 🛠️

Battery’s Cloud Quarterly Q1 2022. Most interesting are the dynamics around seed - that through Q1 seem to have been unchanged despite the public market meltdown (what one would expect). That said, Series A investors seem to have slowed their pace in Q1 in terms of dollars and deal count. We’re seeing a slower quarter across seed with several bluechip investors sitting on their hands as they figure out how downstream investors will view traction, round size, and valuation.

Building Trust and Assessing Integrity as You Interview. “The intent is to provide space for candidates to be more open and to share insights on their experiences, which will allow you to better understand their qualifications for the role. Another thing to keep in mind is that this is not a way to assess a candidate’s moral compass or integrity – that is an entirely different task.”

How to Improve Focus. There are some practical points in focusing in a world full of distractions. This includes a solution-oriented approach vs complaining, time box your indulgences (like social media), and understanding triggers that distract you from getting stuff done.

Who's Hiring? 👩‍💻

Sales Engineer - AI - SaaS at Vector AI in Chicago, IL.

Senior Software Engineer at Token Transit in San Francisco, CA (remote ok).

Head of People at Solvento in Mexico City, Mexico (remote ok).

💥 Have you seen any interesting startups recently? Introduce us.❤️ We would love your support. Please forward to friends and share on social media.🗞️ If you were forwarded this and found it interesting, please sign up.🎙 Check out Dynamo's podcast series, The Future of Supply Chain.