Women Entrepreneurship Ventures (WE Ventures), a R$50m fund Microsoft launched to back women-led startups in Brazil, invested R$1m in PackID, a Brazilian food logistics services platform focused on temperature and humidity monitoring, in March. PackID raised R$1m from GV Angels, ACE, and others in 2019. This is Microsoft’s inaugural investment from its fund for women-led Brazilian entrepreneurs. 

(Contxto) – The logistics industry continues to be riddled with pain points for startups to solve and investors to fund. In this case, cargo stakeholders often lose their investment when temperature-sensitive goods.

Animal products or medicine often suffer environmental changes and are rendered useless… or worse.

So to help these products and their owners “keep their cool,” Brazilian PackID recently closed R$1 million (~US$196,000) through WE Ventures.

Thanks to the investment, the startup will scale commercially and bring its data intelligence platform to more businesses.

PackID had previously raised equity capital in a round led by GV Angels in 2019.

PackID packs the data to protect cargo

The startup from Santa Catarina wants to be a part of the entire supply chain process—which in the disjointed logistics industry, is a big deal.

“One of PackID’s differentials is to be present in the entire chain, from industries, through logistics, to the final point of sale,” explains Caroline Dallacorte, the startup’s CEO and co-Founder.

“We work with sensors that can be placed within the cooling environment of products. Thus customers accompany everything in real-time, with specific reports and analysis that allow us to predict issues that could impact management.”

This means cargo stakeholders can promptly detect anomalies in temperature or humidity and act accordingly. That ultimately leads to them saving money and ensuring product quality.

Solutions like PackID’s grow in importance when considering upcoming challenges like the distribution of the coveted Covid-19 vaccine.

Undoubtedly, countries will want it ASAP and in light of the urgency, there’s little room for mistakes. So I pity the stakeholders who muck up its delivery because of oversight in controlling environmental factors.