Brittany Enix's interest in supply chains began as a child.
Her grandfather worked in a glass manufacturing plant for Ford, she says, where he taught her the intricacies of making something. When Enix moved to Silicon Valley to work for Uber and then Flexport, her interest in the industry grew, and she came up with ways to make supply chains more efficient for small businesses.
“Most of us don't think about the supply chain on a day-to-day basis, but the supply chain shapes everything from what we can buy, where we can buy it, where we live, how much we can buy it for, and that's obviously incredibly important in this economy,” Enix told TechCrunch.
About three years ago, she started working at Portex, a company that helps small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) connect with freight partners and centralize management of their shipping and operations.
There are already a ton of software companies and startups that help businesses manage their shipping needs — a category called transportation management systems (TMS). But many are expensive and loaded with features that small businesses don't need, Ennix says, even though they account for about half of the “$4 trillion spent on transportation each year.” She started Portex to create a TMS that would appeal to small businesses that don't have such a system in place.
“TMS are typically designed for large enterprises, and have been successful in saving them a lot of time, money, and increasing overall efficiency,” she continues. “But for small and medium-sized businesses, the tools can be too expensive, cumbersome, and literally overkill.”
Small businesses that don't yet use a TMS rely on manual processes using email, spreadsheets and PDFs. Portex wants to provide these small businesses with an efficient management process, just like TMS for larger enterprises. Ennix calls Portex an intelligent assistant platform. Portex handles all cargo management-related processes in one place, allowing businesses to easily communicate with carriers and brokers through instant messaging. Portex can also be used to find price quotes, secure competitive rates and see automated analytics.
The company announced a $6.25 million seed round on Thursday, led by Footwork Ventures, with participation from Cowboy Ventures and Base10.
“Companies that use us have been able to reduce manual freight operations by more than 25 hours per week and save or reduce their annual freight costs by up to 30 percent – which in some cases equates to millions of dollars,” Ennix says.
Enix said fundraising for the company went fairly smoothly because she was able to tap into the network she'd built over years of “slavery” in the tech industry. She met lead investor Mike Smith, co-founder and general partner at Footwork Ventures, through another founder. Smith served on the founders' board, and Enix remembers friends describing him as brilliant and thoughtful.
“So when it came time to raise seed money, it made sense for me to pitch Mike full on, because at that point he had already started his own fund.”
“Portex quickly becomes a must-have tool for shippers once they try it,” Smith told TechCrunch. “When I first met Brittany, it was clear that she is relentlessly customer-focused and has successfully built a product that solves a real and pressing need for a large segment that has been overlooked by software builders for too long.”
Portex plans to use its new funding to hire and expand around the world, not to mention step up its artificial intelligence efforts. Enix says that as the data set pulled from every Portex booking grows, the company wants to use AI to make its automation smarter, incorporating features ranging from conversational prompts to suggestions about which airline to fly.
She often thinks back to her grandfather, who worked in a Nashville glass factory for 40 years and taught her how much intention goes into each piece of the final product. He had her fix different things around the house and make different things. She knew she wanted to start a company one day, but didn't realize it would be in this field until she started working at the intersection of technology and logistics.
“My grandfather was a hero to me, and I know he would be proud to see what my team and I have built today,” she said. “My vision for Portext is to be the intelligent management platform for every small or medium-sized business moving cargo around the world.”