Santa Clara IoT tracking company Roambee has acquired Switzerland-based cold chain monitoring outfit Modum, which specialises in the pharmaceutical market. Roambee said the deal will help it to “dominate the real-time cold chain visibility space”. The transaction fee was not disclosed.
The acquisition is Roambee’s second, and second in a couple of months, having bought India-based cloud analytics services firm Arnekt in May to bolster its supply of location insights. Arnekt counts Honda, Epson, and HPE, among its customers.
Modum, founded in 2016 and headquartered in Zurich, has raised $13.5 million since its inception. Roambee completed a $18 million Series B1 funding round in March, ahead of the two acquisitions, with investment from Temasek-backed venture capital fund Reefknot Investments. It raised $15.2 million in series B funding led by Anchor Group and Comcraft in January last year, and $10.2 million across four funding rounds previously.
The latest B1 round was earmarked for expanding the company’s real-time supply chain monitoring business, including in cold chain logistics. Roambee has a deal with “one of the largest US-based [Covid-19] vaccine makers”, to provide tracking and monitoring data for assets used variously in clinical trials, cryogenics, and hospital medications. Roambee has scheduled a Series C round this quarter.
The deal for Modum will allow the firm to “expand its cold chain visibility offering from end-to-end, covering primary, secondary, and the last mile delivery use-cases,” it said. Its platform combines sensor and non-sensor data inputs to enable the delivery of shipments and assets “on time, in full, and in top condition”, it said. Roambee claims over 300 customers for its IoT tracking and monitoring solutions.
Sanjay Sharma, chief executive at Roambee, said: “While most visibility service providers claim to deliver real-time visibility, they rely on carrier data. Insights will never be as granular, real-time, and accurate as sensor driven insights, which is key to logistics automation. With Modum, Roambee will enable customers to automate their logistics through radically simple access to sensor-driven signals, delivered by our immersive, location-aware platform – not only for pharma, but also for fresh produce, and food and beverages.”
He added: “With Covid-19 vaccines shipped world-over at an unprecedented scale, makers, movers, governments, NGOs, hospitals, and doctors are placing a high emphasis on the availability, efficacy, and authenticity of vaccines and medicines to save human lives. Chain of custody integrity and transparency will enable speed and good distribution practice. With Modum, we will deliver a fully pharma-compliant, real-time visibility solution that includes hardware, cloud software, data, and managed services.”
Simon Dössegger, chief executive at Modum, said: “Modum will enhance Roambee’s cold chain footprint with a proven last mile visibility technology to extend the Roambee product proposition to a unique global end-to-end visibility solution. When combined with Roambee’s strong multimodal shipment monitoring capabilities, we can offer granular visibility all the way from manufacturing to a patient’s home at scale.”
Dössegger has joined Roambee’s leadership team as vice president of product management and managing director of the business in Switzerland. Roambee has offices in Mexico, Brazil, UK, Germany, UAE, India, Singapore, Malaysia, and Indonesia.
