Supply chain is a web that spans so wide that many large corporations can’t easily track the entire life cycle for each of its products — let alone capture enough data to ensure that everything is being done to standards and protocol. Carlos Moncayo knows the system all too well as the former founder and CEO of ASIAM Inspector, a company that supports brands and retailers with sourcing operations in Asia, he did everything from inspections to auditing to sourcing. This gave Moncayo deep insight on the many layers of the supply chain and it wasn’t pretty. He noticed a lot of issues surrounding visibility. After 10 years with the company, he was surprised they hadn’t gotten any better.
“We thought with supply chain management and production chain management, the only way to solve [the issues] was to approach it from moving offline relations to online relations and helping companies make sense of the data coming out of that,” he tells Forbes. But at the time, no one was trying to tackle that, so the former founders of ASIAM decided to try it themselves. They launched Inspectorio in 2016 to help companies and brands move their supply chain online and have better visibility and data surrounding quality and sustainability. Since Inspectorio launched its first product in 2017, the company has expanded its product offerings and more than 7,000 customers including Target and Kohl’s have signed on.
The Minneapolis-based startup raises a $50 million Series B round led by Insight Partners with participation from Techstar Ventures, Matchstick Ventures and strategic backers including Flexport, among others, as originally reported in Midas Touch newsletter. Ryan Hinkle, a managing director at Insight, says the firm has been building a relationship with Inspectorio since the beginning of the startup’s life. While the investment could have been sparked by the company’s progress — Hinkle points to the startup’s 93% revenue growth in 2021 — for him it was a bit more personal. His family used to own a clothing store and he remembers helping unwrap shirts and using a measuring tape to ensure the sleeves were the same length and that the size labels matched when he was a kid. Both of which would fall under the quality control assurances Inspectorio looks to provide further down the supply chain.
