Texas-based AI start-up CognitOps, which makes software that uses machine learning to model and automate warehouse management, has completed a $3m seed round.
 
Founded in 2018, CognitOps is an AI company that’s helping businesses create resilient supply chains. The firm believes that supply chain companies will need to centralise their data, model their operations and automate decision-making.
 
This capital will fuel CognitOps’ product expansion and accelerate go-to-market efforts to take advantage of strong market demand. As its customers compete through the Covid-19 impact and the pace of change in their supply chains, the company’s platform can empower warehouse operators to manage complexity, reduce cost and improve cycle time.
 
“Warehouses were already getting too complex with the proliferation of point solutions and omnichannel demands, but Covid-19 has forced our customers to adapt faster than they ever thought was possible,” said Alex Ramirez, co-founder and CEO of CognitOps. “Our solution is purposefully built to quickly plug into any warehouse and dramatically enable better operations from day one.”
 
The warehouse operating system uses machine learning to balance and manage operations holistically, understanding and optimising the state of the building in real time. The cloud-based platform combines capabilities that provide the brain for the warehouse and the work execution extensions to create a self-learning and adapting environment. Features include:

• Data abstraction: Connect to any warehouse system and extract data without new integrations.
• Operational memory: Leverage machine learning to determine course corrections for operation in real time.
• Applications: Engage with applications that serve a purpose; manage, execute and benchmark with the same context.
• Universal UX: Provide a central lens of information to executive, operational, IT and engineering teams.

Chicago Ventures led the investment round, with Schematic Ventures, Ceas Investments and Churton Ventures all participating.

“Current market conditions have supply chains under duress,” said Peter Christman of Chicago Ventures. “CognitOps is helping enterprises adapt by unlocking hidden efficiency and capacity in their warehouse operations. We’re excited to support the CognitOps team’s vision for automating warehouse management.”

CognitOps also announced the appointment of Roger Counihan as chief revenue officer. He joins CognitOps from Fortna, where he was vice president of sales. At Fortna, Counihan built a life sciences practice and led clients through strategic, complex technology designs and implementations.

“I am thrilled to be joining CognitOps and becoming a part of their warehouse operations software revolution,” said Counihan. “There’s a tremendous amount of energy in this industry right now, and warehouse operating models lack resiliency. The CognitOps team is stellar, and I believe we will drive evolutionary change for our clients.”