CAMBRIDGE UK and SANTA CLARA, Calif – September 21, 2022 – RKVST, the integrity, transparency and trust platform for digital supply chain operations, announces the first close of a Series A funding round of $7.5 million, from Ridgeline, Acadia Woods, Cyber Mentor Fund and Long Run Capital. Ryan Clinton, General Partner at Ridgeline, joins Kevin Compton, co-founder at Radar Partners and Nick Sturiale on the RKVST board of directors.
Since introducing the RKVST platform last year and recently announcing both a Free and Team tier service, RKVST now powers verifiable digital supply chains for a growing customer base to track, trace and share the provenance of enterprise assets, enabling more resilient operations and accountability for improved decision-making. The funding will be used to accelerate go-to-market plans, support developers using the RKVST API to add transparency and accountability to supply chain processes, grow partner ecosystems and accelerate feature development.
Rusty Cumpston, Chief Executive Officer, RKVST says:
“Today, we can replace the expensive, redundant, error-prone supply chain processes businesses currently use with a SaaS platform to build verifiable digital supply chain operations. This enables organisations of all sizes to move faster, reduce cost, reduce risk and increase business resiliency. We’re thrilled to be working with great investors who have a wealth of experience in building successful B2B SaaS businesses and delighted that Ryan Clinton is now on our board of directors.”
Ryan Clinton, co-founder and General Partner at Ridgeline says:
“We are excited to invest in and work with the RKVST team. Supply chain resilience is broadly needed for all types of physical and digital assets. We hear it from our Limited Partners and we’ve seen the increasing importance that governments and commercial industry are placing on supply chain security – from US Government Executive Order 14028 and the work of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) – looking to address standards for supply chain integrity, transparency and trust. There’s an impressive team at RKVST with a proven track record, having built multiple successful start-ups, and they are ideally suited to deliver on this growing business opportunity.”
Kevin Compton, co-founder and partner at Radar Partners says:
“As complexity in supply chain operations increases, building resiliency has emerged as a key concern, as highlighted in a recent Supply Chain Tech Report published by Pitchbook. Sharing provenance information about assets is essential in improving resiliency, managing down costs and enhancing the speed of decision-making that organisations now require. The RKVST team recognised the need for supply chain provenance and resiliency four years ago and has introduced an amazing platform accessible with a simple API. The market is huge with worldwide spending on logistics in 2020 standing at $9 trillion, 11% of global Gross Domestic Product. Radar Partners has been fortunate to invest in similar opportunities where great teams coupled with great product vision and market demand result in successful businesses. We believe there’s a bright future for RKVST and are very glad to help support and grow the business.”
