Blume Global heralds a new investment round

Pleasanton, Calif.-based supply chain execution and visibility services provider Blume Global recently announced it has raised new equity, for an undisclosed sum, from London-based private assets growth investor Bridgepoint Group.

Blume officials said that this round of investment values Blume Global at $500 million, with Bridgeport joining funds managed by affiliates of Apollo Global Management and EQT as equity investors in the company.

Established in 2018, Blume Global’s service offerings are comprised of what it describes as a cloud-first, intelligent operating platform that orchestrates global supply chain processes through a digital map of the supply chain world for thousands of customers. And it also noted that by digitizing and transforming global supply chains, enabling shippers (buyers and suppliers), logistics service providers and carriers to work together on a common data driven platform to reduce waste and inefficiencies through visibility, automation and optimization.

What’s more, it said in 2021 it has seen more than 100% annual bookings growth year-to-date, as well as add more than 100 employees since January in the United States, Hong Kong, Europe and India.

“When we launched Blume Global in 2018, we saw an opportunity to build a cloud-based digital operating platform for global supply chains that leverages modern technologies and machine learning to optimize and automate operations,” said Pervinder Johar, CEO, Blume Global, in a statement. “Since then, we have only seen increased demand for a supply chain transparency and orchestration platform like ours. We are thrilled by this new investment from Bridgepoint Group to help fund our continued growth.”

Glenn Jones, Blume's global vice president, product strategy, toldLMthat with this investment, the company will continue breaking down the status quo of siloed supply chain applications by enabling supply chain execution in a single platform and data model.

“This allows stakeholders to better anticipate, and respond to, supply chain disruptions and chokepoints,” he said. “This investment will also help us continue to grow by welcoming in even more analytically minded supply chain technology thinkers in a variety of strategic areas.”

As for what this investment means for customer, Jones explained that the funding will allow the company to continue to improve the Blume digital operating platform, get its message out to the industry, grow its customer base and ensure its customers are receiving high value.

“Our customers come from all verticals, ocean liners, railroads, freight forwards, and multiple shipper segments, and they have been successfully able to use the platform to solve their business challenges,” he noted. “Almost all of our customers are looking for a supply chain digital platform and state-of-the-art applications for real-time visibility, transportation management and supply chain orchestration. The pain points for our customers include: finding cost-effective logistics capacity to move international and domestic loads; understanding the location and quantity of orders and when they will arrive; and focusing on resolving exceptions with the highest business value.”

When asked what the next steps are for Blume on both the investment and strategic roadmap fronts, Jones observed that Blume is a high-growth company that will continue to seek investments if these deals make sense.

“Blume’s roadmap includes applying artificial intelligence to automate decisions; optimization to reduce waste in the supply chain; making carbon emissions more transparent to increase sustainability; and providing technology to smaller companies, enabling them to add capacity to supply chains,” he said.