Inside Trademo Intel’s Plans Of Aiding Global Supply Chain Stakeholders

Supply chains have rapidly become the foundation of the modern economy, not just in India, but globally too. Thus, trade disputes along with environmental, social and governance (ESG) concerns complicate supply chain management for every importer and exporter. It is also evident how events such as the Suez Canal blockage, or the semiconductor shortages have disrupted global supply chains. A more recent example would be the toilet paper shortage in the US during Covid-19 induced lockdowns.

The global supply chain is, and will always be riddled with disruptions caused by situations beyond the control of any supply chain stakeholder. He/she is depending on AI makes sense out of several data points. But since every stakeholder deals with multiple vendors, who have multiple sets of data elements, quality standards, and methods of collecting information, the net result is a difficult-to-use graph.

To solve this problem, California- and Delhi NCR-based Trademo collects public and private data on global trade transactions, sanctioned parties, trade tariffs, ESG and other events using an intel product.

Through advanced data processing across billions of data points, it builds a graphical database that provides end-to-end visibility on global supply chains. The product works on external factors, and provides actionable insights, beyond the stakeholder’s control. Trademo was founded in 2020 by Shalabh Singhal.

Finding Opportunities, Reducing Costs, Avoiding Disruptions Through Trademo Intel

“In the US, port congestion is a major problem right now. When a shipment is leaving China, it does not know the level of congestion in the port of California. Our platform allows logistic companies to make real-time decisions based on market insights — how their competition is tackling the situation,” Singhal told Inc42.

As traders look for diversification, these supply chains become more complicated, resulting in disruptions across functions within an organisation. Not just that, with diversification, traders are looking for alternate suppliers, reducing the turnaround time, and cutting short the intermediaries within their supply chain.

“We tell these importers, or buyers, where their products are getting manufactured, who is the supplier’s supplier, where is the competition sourcing its products from, opportunities in different markets, who else the buyers’ buyer is buying from, and how to explore better paths within the supply chain,” he added.

Citing another example, he added, via Trademo Intel, its flagship product, importers in countries like the US can find new suppliers across different markets, reduce procurement costs, track their existing suppliers for exclusivity and for avoiding supply chain disruptions.

On the other hand, suppliers in countries like China and Brazil use Trademo Intel to identify new markets, potential buyers and understand global demand for their products.

Further, global logistics companies use Trademo Intel to find new prospects, understand their market share on different trade routes and allocate resources intelligently.

For governments, that platform enables recovering trade tax evasion, spotting illegal trade activities, or trade promotion, monitoring transportation usage by various companies and developing a plan accordingly.

Last week, the startup raised $12.5 Mn in a seed round from former Google execs Amit Singhal and Sridhar Ramaswamy, ex-WhatsApp chief Neeraj Arora and Saama Capital.

The funds raised would be used to build Trademo Intel for supply chain stakeholders — suppliers, buyers, logistic companies, trade finance institutions, consulting firms, law firms, investment firms, government and media agencies — to identify new markets, potential buyers, global demand, new prospects, market share on different trade routes and allocate resources intelligently.

According to the startup, Trademo Intel, provides a knowledge graph, actionable insights and business potential.

The data is collected through 1 Bn+ trade transaction between 5 Mn+ entities from 150+ countries. Singhal told Inc42 that they currently collect 30+ data points from every transaction, and plan to expand the number moving forwards.

What Makes It Different From Others — A Two Pronged-Approach

A. External/ Multi-Tier Supply Chain Intelligence: Trademo claims to be working on building on data sets collected beyond the parties involved in one single transaction. For example, a shipment from Brazil comes to the US, a regular intelligence platform would be able to identify data silos from the buyer, and the supplier.

Trademo builds its knowledge base on to-where the US-based buyer will be forwarding the goods, and from-where the Brazil-based supplier bought its products. Thus, bringing in the loop an end-to-end multi-tier intelligence.

B. Building Point: While other supply chain intelligence platforms use point solutions, providing isolated and segregated intelligence and data points, Trademo is working on aggregating data points into one set.

For example, currently, every function will require an individual calculation to derive what actions need to be taken — procurement will function differently, supply chain risk management function will yield different results, revenue calculations will be different, trade regulations and trade compliance systems will be different.

Trademo is working on bringing all of these datasets together, to enable one single truth on global supply chains, not just via AI-ML, but also knowledge graphs.

The post-COVID 19 global supply chain management market size is expected to grow from $23.2 Bn in 2020 to $41.7 Bn by 2026. The global supply chain analytics market size, on the other hand, is expected to reach $8.8 Bn by 2025, up from $3.41 Bn in 2020.

An enterprise supply chain management system is only as good as the data that goes into it. Thus, intending to streamline operations that reduce waste, increase agility, and lower costs, Trademo is eyeing a bigger piece of the market beyond its current presence in 40 countries.

It has over 5 Mn global traders buyers and suppliers and 500 Mn+ shipments data across major countries in the world that can be accessed through its web platform via subscription.

While Trademo majorly competes with the likes of Oracle, SAP, and o9 Solutions, its homegrown competitors include GIC-backed logistics automation and decision-making platform Locus, Tiger Global-backed logistics and field service operations manager and optimiser LogiNext, among others.