deftly.vc welcomes Ceres Technology to its portfolio [+ why we invested]

Ceres Technology uses Machine Learning and AI models to predict supply chain risks for manufacturers and distributors before they make purchase decisions, saving them money, time and reputational damage.

deftly.vc is delighted to be an early investor in Ceres, backing Bobby Katoli and his team in their quest to bring efficiencies and risk mitigation to supply procurement across industries ranging from healthcare to technology. Here is why we invested:

Founder/market fit

With a background in data and experience in fintech, banking, and quantitative trading, Bobby's journey began with a cup of coffee. Quite seriously. After enjoying a great cup of imported coffee, he decided to start a hobby business focused on importing, roasting, packaging, and selling coffee from El Salvador. After encountering issues with shipment delays and degradation firsthand, Bobby spent six days on a cargo ship, coffee in hand, gaining insight into how to approach solving this supply chain problem. Drawing on his founding team's tech, data, and AI backgrounds, they made the decision to transform Ceres Coffee into Ceres Technology, aiming to solve this large issue.

What Makes Ceres Different

Ceres enables companies to predict upstream delays and disruptions months in advance. It brings a unique approach to this problem, utilizing over 17,000 data sets that range from geopolitical factors, to micro and macro economic data, raw material prices, commodities, satellite imaging, structured and unstructured data, and more. This information is then combined with the client's historical purchase order data to identify trends and patterns using our patent-pending AI system. This system enables clients to identify which products and suppliers are at risk of delay before they place their orders. Currently, most companies attempt this manually or rely on solutions that only provide event-based risk monitoring, such as hurricanes or wars. Ceres offers a more comprehensive, granular, and predictive approach.

Vision

Have you seen the movie Minority Report? Do you recall how they had a pre-crime unit that would predict when a crime was about to take place? That's what Ceres aims to be: the pre-"delay" predictive solution for supply chain disruptions. The company's vision is to serve as a cross between Palantir and Google, leveraging vast amounts of data and AI predictive capabilities to solve supply chain problems. As a sneak peek into future plans, Ceres is launching a digital twin early next year, a tool that builds on its predictive platform enabling clients to understand how changes in certain factors, such as increases or decreases in certain raw materials, would affect their entire supply chain network.

If you'd like to learn more about Ceres Technology, feel free to reach out to me or directly to Bobby@Cerestech.co.