Porto-based logistics startup HUUB, raises €2.5 million to expand its customer base in the fashion industry and to hire new staff.
After obtaining funding of €350,000 in the past, HUUB has now raised €2.5 million in a new round of investment. The round was led by the Portuguese venture capital firm Pathena, according to tech.eu.
Luís Roque
“Our early stage is triple the seed average in Europe and this happened for the sake of traction and because the round itself was oversubscribed,” said HUUB CEO Luís Roque via Dinheiro Vivo.
With a demand exceeding supply, “We ended up making the decision to go ahead with a lead investor, who is Portuguese. We are still working and the round may be bigger if there are more stages. There has been interest from several other parties, and we are channeling that interest [which is] mostly international,” he added.
HUUB’s portfolio of companies has more than 40 brands in the fasion industry – mainly international ones – that are active in different geographies.
“We want to be orchestrators and lead the fashion ecosystem on a sustainable-basis demanded by the industry,” the CEO told tech.eu, adding, “this partnership with Pathena, which has led the biggest exits in Portugal, is another step towards our disruptive vision and establishes us as relevant players in the European supply chain scene.”
With the latest injection of capital, HUUB will bet on the expansion of the number of brands with which it works.
“We are talking about increasing our customer base and brands, reaching values between 150 and 200 brands by the end of 2019,” the CEO explained.
Roque added that goals for the future include “investing in the technological center that we are going to maintain in Portugal.”
Prior to co-founding HUUB, Roque was managing key Supply Chain projects at Sonae.
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HUUB has a team of 40 people, and is currently recruiting. “What is expected is that by the end of the year we will have between 60 and 70 people. We are counting to finish 2019 with 80 to 90 people,” said the CEO.
Founded in 2015 by Roque, Tiago Paiva, Pedro Santos, and Tiago Craveiro, HUUB looks to facilitate the logistics operations for fashion retailers by working “the whole management of the supply chain.”
“This means that we manage 100% of the global physical flow of all the brands that work with us,” Roque said.
Last week, HUUB was one of six Portuguese startups selected for StartUp Portugal’s Missions Abroad initiative, which brought the logistics company to The Next Web Conference in Amsterdam.
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Part of the initiative involved visiting B Building Business, considered as one of the most requested incubation spaces in Amsterdam, as well as visiting myCujoo, a company founded by Portuguese entrepreneurs.
HUUB was incubated at Startup Braga, which in just under four years, has incubated and accelerated 115 startups that have gone on to raise a combined €26.8 million.
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Startup Braga has helped put the northern city of Braga on the radar of national and international entrepreneurship.
According to the HUUB CEO on F6S, “HUUB sees itself as a game changer in international commerce. The simplest plug and play connection, designed to suit different needs but bringing the best practices of the market.”
“Logistics + Tech are our focus areas. Our commitment is on the seamless connection between what is physical and what is data. The old philosophy of silos of information and reactive thinking are over. We want to bring the network thinking and the end to end visibility to your reality.”
HUUB is enabling the fashion ecosystem of the future to continue to make the difference in a sustainable way. A new step was climbed with this investment round towards that vision, it will establish ourselves as one of the main European players disrupting the Supply Chain industry.