French visibility startup snares VC funding

Shippeo, which provides road transport visibility in Europe, closed a 10 million euro Series A round Thursday, which it will use to promote growth and platform development, the company said in a statement.    Shippeo, French supply chain startup focused on providing delivery visibility to shippers and logistics providers, has closed a 10 million euro (U.S. $11.77 million) Series A funding round, the company said in a statement Thursday.
   The startup said it is already connected to more than 600 carriers in Europe, and tracks more than 40,000 deliveries per month for customers that include Leroy Merlin, Saint-Gobain, and Faurecia. Shippeo has onboarded 30 key accounts in the past 18 months, following a seed-stage investment of 2 million euros from the venture capital firm Otium Venture, the company said.
   The latest funding round was led by Partech Ventures and Otium. Shippeo said it will use the funding to enhance its interface, expand into the German market in the first quarter of 2018, and make 40 new hires.
   “Real-time supply chain visibility has become the central theme for those in the road transport sector looking for optimizations through better data integration from different stakeholders,” said Shippeo Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder Pierre Khoury.