Delizmart raises pre-series A funding
Delizmart has completed a pre-series A round of funding through a third-party allotment of new shares to four underwriters: KUSABI, New Commerce Ventures, SMBC Venture Capita, and Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, in order to further expand its "Delizmart" business, a digital transformation solution for merchandising operations in the food distribution industry.
Background and Purpose of Fundraising
1. DX and SPA Transformation Required by the Industry
The external environment surrounding the food distribution industry, including food supermarkets, is challenging, with rising procurement costs due to the weak yen, labor shortages, increasing costs such as labor and logistics, and intensifying price competition, all putting pressure on each company's profits. For food distribution companies to survive under these circumstances, promoting SPA (Specialty store retailer of Private label Apparel) transformation and digital transformation (DX) of their business is inevitable. However, it is difficult for food distribution companies to address these issues alone in terms of resources, so they are seeking partners who can accompany them in the digital and AI era.
2. Promoting Digital Transformation Investments to Improve Productivity of MD Operations
In this context, Delizmart has expanded its business from a "back-office SaaS business focused on streamlining product management operations" during its founding period to "DX solutions for merchandising operations, focusing on product development and procurement operations." Rather than simply digitizing some traditional operations, Delizmart will actively support the transformation of the entire food distribution industry by using digital technology to innovate merchandising (MD) operations, which can be considered the source of competitiveness in the food distribution business. With this funding, Delizmart will develop and provide products that improve the productivity (high standardization) of merchandising operations in the food distribution industry and invest in human resources.
Services Provided: MD Business Digital Transformation Solution "Delizmart"
Challenges Faced by Buyers
Currently, buyers in charge of MD in the food distribution business urgently need to accurately and quickly stock products in response to competitive situations with rival companies, but the majority of their work still consists of analog paperwork, preventing them from devoting resources to their core buyer duties such as product development and searching for alternatives.
Furthermore, analog work leads to job dependency on individuals, meaning that young buyers can only "learn by watching the work of veterans," ultimately resulting in a decline in the MD competitiveness of the entire organization.
Transforming Merchandising Operations to Support Unique Product Lineups
To address these issues, Delizmart will use the power of digital technology to reduce the analog work that burdens buyers and digitize the knowledge, experience, and networks of experienced buyers as company assets, which will then be shared and accumulated within the organization. This will improve the productivity of buyer work, strengthen unique product lineups by utilizing MD data, and support sustainable competitiveness improvement.