Tiger, SoftBank lead round for Latin American logistics startup

As supply chains around the world struggle to deliver goods on time, Tiger Global Management LLC and SoftBank Group Corp are backing a Latin American logistics startup specializing in digital freight forwarding with plans to expand rapidly in Brazil in 2022.

Nowports, founded by a 22-year-old Mexican native and a 30-year-old Uruguayan who met at Stanford University, raised $60 million in the Series B round that was also backed by DST. The company allows importers and exporters to ship goods directly through their platform and is also developing financing and insurance tools.

The proceeds will largely be used to expand its newly launched Brazilian operations, with plans to grow the team there to about 100 people next year, co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Alfonso de los Rios said in an interview. The Mexican native is now based in Sao Paulo overseeing the business while his co-founder, Maximiliano Casal, who is Chief Operating Officer, is in Montevideo.

“We want to be the operating system in charge of moving freight for companies from point A to point B, to and from Latin America,” de los Rios said. He declined to provide a current valuation for the company.

Nowports, which currently employs about 300 people, saw its business boom during the pandemic. Around the world, ports and airports have become severely strained under record-breaking demand because of growing e-commerce and worker and truck shortages.

About 15% of current business comes from trucking along the busy U.S., Mexico border while maritime shipping between China and Latin America is also a key component, according to de los Rios.

“We’ve seen significant growth,” he said. “One of the main triggers was supply chain interruption.”

Nowports revenue should be more than $500 million next year.

The company currently operates in Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Brazil and Panama. It also has operating offices in Miami and China to help customers navigate bottlenecks and disruptions in their shipping needs to Latin America, with another one due to open in Bilbao, Spain, de los Rios said.

Nowports has already acquired a specialized lender, or Sofom, in Mexico, to grow its lending business. The idea is to allow customers to import now and pay later, using cargo as collateral. Around 50 of its 1,200 customers are currently using the services as part of a beta program, but 70% have been pre-approved for them. A loan can be approved in as fast as 30 seconds, he said.

“I think the magic of Nowports is using logistics as the main financial basis to offer additional services,” de los Rios said.

Nowports was part of the Y Combinator accelerator and received investments from Mouro Capital, Foundation Capital, Broadhaven Ventures, Monashees, and Base10 Partners in its Series A.

Startups in Latin America have raised a record $14.1 billion in private capital this year through Nov. 12, more than tripling the amount in all of 2020, according to PitchBook.