SHANGHAI, Dec. 28, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- oTMS, leading transport management platform in China, announces the completion of Series C1 strategic financing round from China Merchants Venture Capital Management Co., Ltd. oTMS, as leading choice for retailers and manufacturers, has a unique position to consolidate information flows from top to the bottom of the transportation industry chain. This financing reflects the recognition of China Merchants Venture Capital from the perspective of industrial strategic investors on the positioning of oTMS as well as its "SaaS TMS+ Transportation Control Tower" strategy.
Established in 2013, oTMS is the creator of SaaS-mode transportation management platform in China, aiming to connect manufacturers, carriers, drivers and consignees in a shared platform via the cloud to achieve transparency and digitization. oTMS integrates management and transactions, and enable customers quickly optimize supply chain through carrier procurement, management, payment and performance analysis. As of 2018, oTMS omni-channel transportation management platform (oneTMS) has accumulated hundreds of shippers, more than 3,000 trucking companies, and over 200,000 drivers that have installed oTMS apps. In 2017, oneTMS processed almost 60 million shipments, and in 2018 transactions exceeded 100 million shipments, worth over RMB 10 billion in freight cost. In 2018, oTMS began to provide shippers Transportation Control Tower services, helping them to optimize the transportation chain and achieving sustainable cost reductions.
Established in 2015, China Merchants Venture Capital Management Co., Ltd (CMVC) is an investment entity responsible for strategic investments of China Merchants Group. It is headquartered in Shenzhen. CMVC manages 5 billion RMB, of which 2 billion is for investments as LP in VC funds and 3 billion is for direct investments in startups in early to growth stages. Investment areas include strategic domains of China Merchants Group, such as finance, real estate and logistics, as well as technological innovations such as healthcare, IoT and artificial intelligence. China Merchants Group, founded in 1872, had total assets of 7.3 trillion RMB at the end of 2017, ranking the first among national-level state-owned enterprises in China. Its business mainly focuses on three core industries: transportation, finance and real estate in urban and industrial park comprehensive development & operation.
In this financing, Gan Zixin, vice president of CMVC, said: "I am very pleased to work with oTMS to invigorate and transform industry that faces decreasing volumes and margins in challenging economic conditions. In the past 5 years, I have had the opportunity to observe the various attempts of road freight + Internet. This process is not easy. There have been many hypotheses. Will road transport service be disrupted like the taxi industry? Can middlemen be disintermediated? Can vehicle matching cut down costs? Now, most of these simple models been proven false, and the transformation of logistics still needs to start from core business process transformation. oTMS has accumulated the trust of shippers through years of solid growth and product development, with increasing operations scale and freight volume of platform. oTMS crossed the ultimate threshold from digitization to substantial transformation of transport processes of its users. CMVC is looking forward to working with the company to provide shippers with more completed solutions from information platform to management services, which can drive customer's intelligent cost reduction and efficiency enhancement in this economic transition period."
Mirek Dabrowski, CEO and co-founder of oTMS said: "We are honored that oTMS was recognized by CMVC as China Merchants is one of the largest conglomerates in China that also includes the leading logistics provider. This investment as well as growing demand for our solutions validates our approach to use digitization to drive meaningful and sustainable services and cost improvements. Shippers realize that the current status quo of reliance on exclusive, fixed carriers with a lack of cost and service transparency and cannot be sustained. While there are no easy shortcuts, this transition can nevertheless be accelerated by outsourcing transport management services to oTMS with technology, carriers, service and payment all pre-packaged to lock-in savings immediately".
oTMS is gearing towards using CMVC capital & China Merchant resources and expertise to further develop technology and service platforms and provide a comprehensive Transportation Control Tower offering aimed at increasing the service level and reducing cost of retailers and manufacturers in China.
oTMS Website: www.otms.com
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