Nuvo, a company that has built a social-like platform to facilitate easier purchasing of physical goods between businesses, has raised a $34 million Series A from Sequoia Capital and Spark Capital, it tells TechCrunch exclusively.
The San Francisco-based startup previously raised $11 million in an undisclosed seed round led by Founders Fund and Index Ventures in early 2022. Other institutional backers include Foundation Capital, Human Capital, and Susa Ventures.
Angel investors Gokul Rajaram, Instacart founder Max Mullen, Rippling COO Matt MacInnis, Samsara founders Sanjit Biswas and John Bicket and Flexport founder Ryan Petersen, among others, also have written checks into Nuvo.
Sid Malladi, CEO and co-founder, started Nuvo in 2021 with CTO Rameez Remsudeen to give businesses a way to create profiles they can share with trade partners. Think of it as a LinkedIn for B2B trade.
The purchase of physical goods, such as lumber and electronic parts, by businesses, along with the credit agreements that support these purchases, is an $11 trillion industry in the United States. But it’s an industry that remains plagued by old-fashioned methods of communication such as faxes, phone calls, and emails, Remsudeen says.
And with tariffs looming, the need for such a platform has likely never been greater.
“Any volatility, for tariffs or other reasons, causes shifts in trade partnerships across all businesses that need to respond to changes in price, risk, or other parameters,” Malladi, a former product manager at Yelp, told TechCrunch. “None of this can happen smoothly when relying on pen-and-paper processes.”
Nuvo wants to help businesses more quickly connect with trade partners, as well as gain faster access to information such as creditworthiness, banking data, and partner history. By helping businesses connect and verify each other, Nuvo claims it can also lead to fewer instances of fraud, loss, delays, and less administrative overhead.
So, how does it work? Sellers invite buyers to join the platform. Those buyers in turn can connect with additional sellers. Users create a business identity profile, and the platform verifies their information in real time. Users can also get customer references, credit reports, FICO scores, and license verifications in the Nuvo customer dashboard. In addition, customers gain the potential to connect with new suppliers, secure better credit terms, and streamline their own purchasing processes, notes Sequoia partner Bryan Schreier.
“The potential for network effects reminds us of other great companies Sequoia has been fortunate to partner with, including payments giants PayPal and Stripe,” he told TechCrunch. “As new customers join Nuvo, they bring their buyers and sellers with them, and in the process, create a data platform that keeps getting better. By bringing B2B commerce online, Nuvo is enabling businesses to grow with confidence and security.”
Other companies exist that attempt to do similar things, including HighRadius, noted Malladi.
“The key difference is that Nuvo isn’t a single-player SaaS tool. It’s a network,” Remsudeen said. “It’s like comparing your contacts app to Facebook when it comes to managing your social relationships.”
By the end of the second quarter, Nuvo, which currently has 42 employees, will have about 50,000 businesses in its trade network, including Great Dane, Southern Glazer’s Wine & Spirits, and Fender. The company currently charges annual subscription fees.
Nuvo’s core markets are alcohol & beverage, building materials, chemicals, distribution, food service and manufacturing. It’s looking to expand into new verticals as well as features like payments and AI. It’s also seeking to expand internationally and is eyeing markets such as Mexico, Latin America, Europe, and the Asia-Pacific region.