In the last-mile segment of logistics, delivery route planning and schedule optimization are predominantly human-driven tasks. Organizing workforce and determining delivery routes of the day is an exhaustive process, which can negatively impact bottom lines if handled inefficiently.
OptimoRoute, a route planning and schedule optimization platform, bridges this gap by leveraging technology. “We help companies organize their mobile workforce, building routes and schedules for them to increase the number of deliveries or services performed with their existing workforce,” said Marin Saric, the CEO and co-founder of OptimoRoute.
Saric explained that by reducing the unnecessary consumption of resources, companies can grow their revenue. Case studies of companies using OptimoRoute have shown them to increase activity by nearly 30% via intelligent management of schedules and reducing fuel expenses through dynamic route planning.
“Logistics is not just happening in big warehouses and on trucks moving between cities,” said Saric. “Logistics is every time you call a plumber to your house. Logistics is a pharmacy trying to quickly organize medicine deliveries to homes during the pandemic. OptimoRoute pushes a product that provides the most advanced logistics planning possibilities into everyone’s hands.”
OptimoRoute currently has over 1,000 businesses using its platform, from small neighborhood businesses to large multinational corporations generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue every year. COVID-19 led to an explosion of interest in OptimoRoute, especially among last-mile food delivery businesses. Food delivery orders placed monthly with businesses using OptimoRoute rose 151% month-on-month in April, compared to 19% the month before.
Saric called the last-mile route optimization issue a particularly complicated example of the “traveling salesman problem” where salesmen selling across several cities would have to find the shortest possible route to visit every city and return to their origin city. A major chunk of all routing-related technology currently in use today is several decades old. Saric contends they are inefficient and not adaptable to real-time changes in logistics needs.
Today, companies across a myriad of industries work with OptimoRoute to get their workforce schedules in order. “For example, the Southern Star Central Gas Pipeline runs pipelines that cross several U.S. states and lay thousands of miles. Over 300 people are maintaining it, and they are organized every day using OptimoRoute,” said Saric. “We are also used by a huge number of small business services, that do anything from pool services to meal-prep kit delivery services.”
The company raised $6.5 million in a Series A funding round earlier this year, led by Prelude Ventures and with participation from other Silicon Valley-based venture capital firms and angel investors. Saric explained that OptimoRoute was particular in raising investment from Silicon Valley, as the high standards set by investors from the region would help validate their technology prowess.
“OptimoRoute allows companies to plan across large time scale horizons. We provide multi-day work schedule planning tools to businesses for as little as $100 per month. This is because of the fundamental breakthroughs that we’ve achieved over the years,” said Saric. “Our solution automates even the most detailed decisions that are usually left to a logistics manager today. Timely delivery percentages go up considerably, and companies save substantially on fuel.”
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