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

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Weekly Commentary 💭

The past week saw meaningful announcements regarding COVID-19 vaccinations. Part-and-parcel with those conversations is the requisite ultra-cold supply chain that Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine requires. The good news is that other vaccines will follow suit that can use existing cold logistics infrastructure but will require multi-party coordination, trade-offs between stakeholders, and once-in-a-century leadership to secure the health of the world population.

If you know someone brilliant building a startup in cold chain, we want to hear from them. Please connect us at [email protected].

We Are Dynamo,

Santosh, Ted, Barry, Jon, and William

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Supply Chain 📦

A Vaccine is on the Horizon, but How Do We Distribute It?. Effectively distributing a vaccine which must be kept at 100° F(-70° C) serves as no simple feat for logistics operators. With Pfizer anticipated to produce 50M doses this year and 1.3B in 2021, key questions remain regarding the distribution. That said, the distribution could have a positive impact on the battered airline sector by boosting global aviation demand. Speaking of vaccine distribution, Check Out Our New Blog Post Assessing Key Challenges to Vaccine DistributionandHow COVID Highlighted the Importance of Cold Chains.

Pepsi Pilots Dematic Microfulfillment. Partnering with Dematic, Pepsi is piloting automated microfulfillment for online orders. Initial reports show Pepsi can service 7.5x more units per hour than a traditional eComm warehouse operation, providing a leg up on competitors. ICYMI, STIQ Report on AGVs and AMRs.

🌟Walmart Adds “Pop Up” Centers for Online Holiday Rush. Walmart plans 42 eComm fulfillment sites within existing regional distribution facilities that'll ship up to 30% of its online holiday volume. By merging eComm and retail operations, Walmart stands to save tremendously on transportation costs. The retailer's strategy may be adopted by others aiming to optimize internal ops during the peak season. Related, XPO Expands Capacity and Automation to Cope With Holiday Volumesand USPS Continues Loss Streak in 2020.

Product Radar: Amazon Looks to Ramp Brokerage Ambitions, Schneider Launches FreightPower App, and Baton’s Elastic Trucking. Especially interesting is this bit on Amazon- “A new trucking service it quietly launched in May allows businesses to hire truckers to move freight for other companies besides Amazon, including retailers such as Dollar General. That is part of a long-term plan to become a top five U.S. freight broker catering to big corporate customers, putting Amazon in competition with industry giants like C.H. Robinson and XPO Logistics, the person said.”

US Truckers Battle an Array of Headwinds. Record road freight demand paired with capacity constraints have created logistical bottlenecks across the globe. Now with stricter drug tests and some driving schools closed, many truck drivers find themselves sitting on the sidelines. A recent study showed almost 300K drivers would fail a new hair follicle drug test, effectively eliminating 9% of drivers from the workforce, further contributing to industry logjams. Related, How Driver Shortages May Keep Capacity Tight Into 2021 and Beyondwhile Trailer Orders Hit New Records.

Imports Set Peak Season Records. US ports handled 8.1M TEUs from July-October a 6% y/y increase and significantly higher than the previous 2018 record. Driven by retailers restocking for the holiday’s, the import surge signals a steadily recovering retail sector. Retailers might also be prepping for another round of panic buying with the fear of new lockdowns looming with COVID cases setting daily records. Also, the New Measures Across East Coast Ports to Handle Burgeoning Container Volume.

JLL Report Points to Warehouse Construction Leading Recovery as eComm Booms. As construction slowed across other sectors, US warehouse starts are expected to grow this year with increased demand in face of eComm growth. Last mile and cold storage facilities are two other areas seeing spikes in warehouse demand. Despite the short term signals, the report warns full economic rebound will depend upon a COVID vaccine and second stimulus bill. Related, Smaller is Bigger in New eComm Warehouse Builds.

Mobility 🚗

🌟VW Breaks Ground on Tennessee Battery Lab. VW's Battery Engineering Lab in Chattanooga will accompany the city's EV production expansion and battery pack assembly facility. Now with an SK Innovation Lab in neighboring GA, the German automaker has established infrastructure to localize all aspects of vehicle development and production, in turn lowering costs and shortening production cycles. Marking VW's first US battery facility, the move may prompt more foreign automakers to plant EV operations in the southern US.

Lyft Ventures Into Food Delivery As Ride-Hailing Slows. Battling a 48% drop in quarterly revenue and slow ride hailing recovery, Lyft seeks to muscle its way into food delivery. The company has spent ample time with restaurants, hearing their gripes and criticisms of other delivery apps and found sky high commission rates were the most common complaint. Platforms like Uber Eats charge 20-30%, providing Lyft a window to undercut those rates or even nix them all together with its new delivery app.Elsewhere, How Ride Hailing Business Should Protect User Data.

Behind the Scrutiny of Bird’s Fleet Manager Program. In a business model that asks contractors to pay up-front fees to manage a fleet of scooters under Bird’s provisions, the program faces accusations of “luring contract workers into debt.” However, some have pointed to the program as time intensive, yet lucrative if you’re an experienced fleet manager. Highlighting a broader theme, the industry leans heavily upon contract workers, begging the question of the ethicality surrounding the franchise model used by urban mobility companies and the fair classification of its “fleet managers.” Looking ahead, What a Biden-Harris Administration Means for Micromobility.

Flying Taxi Startup Builds Hub in Florida. German startup Lilium establishes its US presence with a $25M, 56K ft² transportation hub in Orlando, FL with hopes of beginning regional trips in the electric aircraft by 2025. Lilium’s objective is to expedite regional travel by encouraging residents to fly rather than drive in their gas powered vehicles. While regulatory, financial, and infrastructural hurdles remain, the transportation hub is the first step in scaling out an electric full service regional transport service.Speaking of high speed transportation, Virgin Hyperloop Executes First Manned Test.

BMW CEO Assess Possibility of Mobility JV With Daimler. Throughout the year, we’ve seen partnerships as the default method to cost reduction for joint mobility ventures. BMW is actively exploring options for its JV with Daimler including additional partners or even a partial sale. The venture which has faced bouts of uncertainty, includes car sharing and ride hailing services recently received a €1B offer from Uber for the venture. Speaking of Uber, we’re hearing of Talks to Sell the Uber ATG Unit to Aurora Advance.

Ford’s Plan to Launch Self-Driving Vehicles. With over 2.8K fatalities and over 400K injuries resulting from car crashes involving distracted drivers, Ford is working tirelessly to safely deploy self-driving vehicles, which it believes can greatly improve these figures. Ford brought on Chris Gerdes who served as the US DOT’s first chief innovation officer and original drafter of the country’s first federal automated vehicle guidelines. The automaker will lean on Gerde’s expertise to set itself apart from the crowded field of automakers looking to build a safe and reliable self-driving system. Related, Velodyne to Affordably Price Self-Driving Car Sensor and Virtual Drivers Licenses May Accelerate AV Deployment.

Rivian Plans a Nationwide Service Network. Before customers take delivery of their Rivian EVs, the automaker plans to have a fully operational service network deployed. Customers will have two repair options for fixes that cannot be done through over the air updates: visit a brick and mortar service center or schedule a mobile service at their home or business. Given EVs have a rather simple internal infrastructure, Rivian believes a majority of service operations can be done remotely, powering a fundamental shift in the way car owners view required maintenance going forward. As EVs gain adoption, Charging Stations Show Vulnerability to Low-Cost Hacking.

Fundraises, M&A, Talent 💸

Sote Raises $3M in Seed Funding Led by MaC Venture Capital. Sote is building digital logistics infrastructure for Africa by providing software driven supply chain services across the continent. Funding will help introduce new software solutions to customers and supply chain partners, expand to new markets, and scale its customer base over the next year targeting the 20 million import and export containers available in Africa.

Kinetic Raises $11.2M Series A Led by Crosslink Capital, Primary Ventures, and Others. Kinetic is a wearable device startup aiming to measure and improve industrial and warehouse workplace safety. Fresh funds will help grow and scale its engineering, sales, and marketing teams and support R&D.

TIER Raises €211M Series C Led by Softbank. TIER is Europe’s leading eScooter startup with over 80K scooters deployed across 80 cities in 10 countries. New capital will help accelerate the company’s vision to Change Mobility for Good.

Xpressbees Raises $110M in Series E Funding Led by Investcorp, Norwest Venture Partners, and Gaja Capital. Based in Pune, Xpressbees is a cross-border logistics eComm logistics startup. Fresh capital will be deployed towards automating its hubs and sort centers, as well as expanding the delivery footprint to cover the entire country of India.

Nuro Raises $500M Led by funds and accounts advised by T. Rowe Price.Nuro is working to deliver the future of local commerce, autonomously through robotics and automated vehicle technology. Fresh capital will help Nuro expand its team and also scale up manufacturing.

Full Truck Alliance Raises $1.7B Ahead of IPO. Based in Guiyang, China, Full Truck Alliance is a startup providing an Uber-like experience for the trucking industry. New funding will contribute to business expansion ahead of its 2021 IPO.

Descartes Acquires ShipTrack for $19M. Looking to bolster its eComm final mile capabilities, Descartes acquires the Ontario-based provider of cloud-based mobile resource management and shipment tracking solutions. The cost of the deal could reach $38M if ShipTrack achieves revenue based targets.

🌟DoorDash Files for IPO. The leading food delivery app in the US filed for IPO with the SEC friday. Doordash reported $1.9B in revenue for the nine months ended Sept. 30 and a net loss of $149B and was last valued at $16B after raising $2.5B.

Company Building 🛠️

2020 Expansion SaaS Benchmarks. OpenView does a fantastic job with this each year. Interesting perspective around investment in sales - “In our view, it’s time to ramp back up GTM investment. Companies are acquiring and retaining their customers as efficiently as ever. They’re just not spending nearly enough on acquisition to actually reach those customers who have demonstrated they still want to invest in digital transformation.”

How Developer Marketing Parallels Consumer Marketing. We’ve been investing heavily in companies that have a developer-centric sales effort despite being supply chain investors. As Tunguz puts, there are plenty of similarities with consumer acquisition and we find it especially important to have founders who are a good representation/have a strong grasp of their developer end user personas.

Why No One Tells Founders "It's over, move on.". This is the reality of startups but we’ve found that Founders need to hear this explicitly and empathetically. It’s hard to realize that one’s dream or vision isn’t going to take shape.

Who's Hiring? 👩‍💻

SDR at Vizion in Atlanta, GA (remote ok).

Senior Fullstack Engineer at Backbone AI in New York, NY.

ML Engineer at Vector AI in London, UK.

Check out other jobs at Dynamo portfolio companies.💥 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.