Introducing Geomiq and Partium, the latest additions to our investment portfolio. Geomiq and Partium are tackling the global supply chain crisis, with 2 very different technologies.
HQ: London, England
Founders: Sam Al-Mukhtar and William Hoyer-Millar
The problem: Supply chain challenges and fluctuating demand create a perfect storm, which can generate a sourcing backlog for manufactured parts. This year, the International Monetary fund said that due to supply chain issues, the forecast for global economic growth decreased from 4.9 percent to 4.4 percent. Traditional methods to resolve this volatile issue have required patience, foresight, and a little bit of luck.
The Geomiq solution: Geomiq is the smart platform for instant quotes and ordering of custom manufactured parts. The two-sided marketplace offers a more competitive, more reliable, quicker way of procuring small batch custom parts. For buyers, Geomiq’s proprietary tools & technology make it easier and faster for engineers to access approved global suppliers. And for sellers, the data driven information provided by Geomiq helps suppliers manufacture the parts in demand. Geomiq balances the interests of both parties with smart matching, quality control, performance monitoring among its other capabilities, allowing Geomiq to take projects from design to production in a streamlined process.
Why we’re investing: Alternative procurement solutions are highly in-demand as manufacturers scramble to ready their supply chain needs for new products and seek to bolster supply chain resilience. Time may help, but it will not heal all. While some supply chain issues can be resolved with patience, other strains still persist and will continue to do so. Brexit, the COVID-19 pandemic, and now the War in Ukraine have all illustrated the need for supply chain resilience, and Geomiq arms operations with the supply chain tech to excel in their industry.
Further reading: Making supply chains accessible to all manufacturers, Geomiq lands $8.5 million
HQ: Vienna, Austria
Founder: Philipp Descovich
The problem: Repairs are inevitable – whether it’s cleaning dirty parts, replacing broken parts, or understanding the entire universe of machine part terminology. Identifying the correct parts needed in a repair and then sourcing them in a timely manner can be the biggest hurdle of a job. Pinpointing parts can be even trickier than the repair job itself. Manufacturers desire to increase sales output and decrease customer service operations, and maintenance technicians are asked to keep inventory at a low level and speed up turnaround times, resulting in the need for a quicker solution.
The Partium solution: Partium is a semantic visual search tool that allows maintenance and manufacturing technicians to accurately and quickly identify parts. With Partium, identifying the right parts needed for a repair or a cleaning through the part search engine saves time and energy, allowing professionals to focus their efforts on the task at hand. The combined search approach and expert confirmation cuts down on hours of sourcing to minutes. Select customers like Bosch and Home Depot have been able to identify parts 50X faster working with Partium compared to traditional means — across maintenance/field work and OEM/aftermarket applications.
Why we’re investing: Imagine how easy it would be and how many products could be repaired as opposed to tossed if finding your niche part only required snapping a photo. Through the ease of identifying parts, product lifecycles can increase beyond their current limitations, manpower can be redirected, and turnaround times for repairs can be sped up. Aftermarket services is a unique area that offers a great amount of growth, specifically where supply chain technology can modernize part sourcing.
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