BASF : Joint Press Release Digitalization of supply chain logistics Loady closes financing round of 3.2 million euros after spin-off from BASF's business incubator

• The seed financing round, led by Startup BW Innovation Fonds GmbH & Co. KG and MBG Mittelständische Beteiligungsgesellschaft Baden-Württemberg, was successfully closed.
• Loady offers a master data platform that optimizes the entire B2B transport process.

Mannheim, 12.06.2024 - Loady, a cross-industry platform for optimizing logistics, successfully closes a seed financing round to further expand its business activities. The round was led by Startup BW Innovation Fonds GmbH & Co. KG and MBG Mittelständische Beteiligungsgesellschaft Baden-Württemberg and supported by Chemovator, KST Invest and a pool of private investors. Loady offers customers a master data platform on which companies can manage and use reliable logistics requirements and share them with logistics partners. The startup was recently spun off from Chemovator, the business incubator and early-stage investor of BASF.

Harmonization of data and simplified access to logistics requirements for all parties involved

With Loady, the founding team consisting of Stefanie Kraus, Elzbieta Wiankowska and Dennis Jantos offers a solution for the oftentimes manual, slow and error-prone flow of information in the highly fragmented logistics sector. With its secure platform and integrated add-on solutions, Loady is the first company to provide a standardized system as a single source of truth that all participants along the logistics supply chain can refer to. It is the industry itself that maintains their requirements in Loady's common structure. This allows shippers, freight forwarders and truck drivers to access up-to-date information at all times. As a result, the chemical and automotive industries, among others, can become more efficient and sustainable in their logistics: Truck journeys that are incorrectly planned or incompletely equipped will become less and less commonplace - reliability and predictability in the supply chain increases.

"With Loady, we are eliminating a fundamental weakness in logistics. From now on, relationships between shippers, freight forwarders, truck drivers and customers will change for the better. Loady saves all logistics partners money and valuable time - and is a key success factor for further digitalization and automation," says Stefanie Kraus, co-founder and CEO of Loady GmbH.

Taking the next steps and driving growth with strategic partners

Startup BW Innovation Fonds GmbH & Co. KG, managed by MBG Mittelständische Beteiligungsgesellschaft Baden-Württemberg, led the financing round as a financial investor. MBG draws on more than 50 years of expertise and acts as an interface between the old and new economy, opening new doors for both startups and existing companies. For Loady, MBG is a strong partner and supporter on the way to becoming a successful and profitable company in Europe and preparing the team for future expansion into the US market.

"Loady has the unique potential to become the leading master data software for logistics-intensive requirements and sectors such as the chemical industry in Germany and Europe. With its proven solution, Loady serves an extremely attractive and global market, transforms companies' transportation processes and generates valuable data for maximum success. We are convinced of the startup's disruptive concept and that Loady will benefit companies in Baden-Württemberg and beyond," says Andreas Stadie, Investment Manager at MBG.

With the closing of the financing round, Loady is the sixth startup to successfully spin off from Chemovator, the business incubator and early-stage investor of BASF. Even after becoming independent, important relationships between Loady and almost all BASF operating divisions as customers or potential customers remain.

"It is always a special moment for me when a venture successfully leaves us and takes own steps forwards. Loady is a remarkable startup that combines a strong founding team with many years of expertise to solve a relevant need for the entire logistics chain of the chemical industry, " adds Markus Bold, Managing Director at Chemovator GmbH.

The financial and strategic support of the investors brings Loady closer to its goal of optimizing 60% of chemical transports in Europe by the end of 2025, reducing costs by around 500 million euros and saving over 30 thousand tons of CO² emissions. In addition, the team plans to expand the existing offering with new functions and adapt the technological framework for additional industries.