International logistics faces unprecedented complexity as U.S. commerce in items surpasses $5.3T yearly, with imports from Asia and Latin America alone exceeding $2.3T. Regardless of this huge scale, most importers nonetheless depend on emails, spreadsheets, and fragmented legacy methods to handle intermodal shipments on the container stage, leaving operators combating fires with restricted instruments below excessive strain. Nauta addresses this problem with an AI-powered logistics orchestration platform that offers importers a single supply of reality and management heart for his or her world operations. The platform harmonizes information from emails, paperwork, and methods into actionable insights, enabling operators to scale back detention prices by as much as 80%, improve productiveness by 30%, and enhance container processing instances by 75%. Since launching in Q1 2025, the corporate serves importers throughout seven nations, working with main distributors of globally-recognized manufacturers together with New Steadiness, Ashley Furnishings HomeStore, L’Oréal, Modelo, and Moët & Chandon.
AlleyWatch sat down with Nauta CEO and Cofounder Valentina Jordan to be taught extra in regards to the enterprise, its future plans, latest funding spherical, and far, far more…
Who had been your buyers and the way a lot did you increase?
We raised a $7M seed spherical led by Assemble Capital and Predictive. Camila Key Saruhashi of Assemble Capital, who brings deep provide chain experience, led the spherical.
Inform us in regards to the services or products that Nauta gives.
Nauta is the AI-powered logistics orchestration platform for importers. We’re reworking world logistics by turning fragmented, hard-to-use information into actionable insights — beginning with the operators who handle the motion of products daily.
What impressed the beginning of Nauta?
All of it begins with the operator’s expertise. In logistics, each container tells a narrative, and no two journeys are alike. The folks managing these journeys are juggling numerous transferring components, typically below excessive strain, as a result of profitability and buyer satisfaction rely on their choices. I’ve seen firsthand how a lot of their day is spent combating fires with restricted instruments and fragmented information.
We began Nauta to alter that. Whereas we are able to’t cease exterior shocks like climate, tariffs, or geopolitical occasions, we are able to provide operators extra management of what they’ll really management. Nauta makes an operator’s personal information actionable by unlocking the insights hidden of their inboxes, paperwork, and accomplice communications.
Through the use of AI to construction data, we give importers management over their operations and the power to handle cashflow with readability the place there was as soon as chaos, finally constructing resilience and stronger margins.
How is Nauta completely different?
Nauta was purpose-built for importers. Regardless of trillions of {dollars} in items transferring annually, most importers nonetheless depend on emails, spreadsheets, and siloed legacy methods to handle world shipments, which leaves them with out actual management.
Nauta adjustments that. By serving as an AI-powered management heart, we give importers a single supply of reality and the power to automate routine workflows. With versatile, agentic capabilities, Nauta helps operators act quicker, develop margins, and construct resilience within the face of rising world complexity.
What market does Nauta goal and the way massive is it?
We launched in Q1 2025 and already serve importers in seven nations, together with main distributors of worldwide acknowledged manufacturers comparable to New Steadiness, Ashley Furnishings HomeStore, L’Oréal, Modelo, and Moët & Chandon. At this time, we monitor and monitor greater than 5,000 containers every day throughout 190+ maritime traces.
Our main clients are importers of non-durable items – assume meals and beverage, retail, prescription drugs. All industries the place deep chilly chain experience is required.
What’s your small business mannequin?
Nauta operates on a regular SaaS mannequin.
How are you getting ready for a possible financial slowdown?
We’re centered on development. We’re signing main clients, increasing into new markets, and persevering with to ship in opposition to our formidable product imaginative and prescient. By serving to importers shield margins and acquire management, we’re constructing a enterprise that issues in any financial atmosphere.
What was the funding course of like?
For us, the funding course of wasn’t nearly elevating capital; it was about discovering the proper companions. We prioritized buyers who understood that logistics and commerce are legacy industries in want of transformation, and who shared our long-term imaginative and prescient. That made the method much less transactional and extra about constructing lasting relationships. In the long run, we had been on the lookout for capital and the individuals who may very well be true companions within the journey.
What are the most important challenges that you just confronted whereas elevating capital?
The most important problem was being disciplined in saying ‘no.’ Once you’re elevating, it’s tempting to take any curiosity that comes your manner, however we stayed centered on discovering the proper companions who understood our area and believed in long-term worth creation. That required persistence and conviction, however it’s what finally gave us the investor group we wished.
What elements about your small business led your buyers to jot down the test?
One of many causes that Camila Key Saruhashi of Assemble Capital, who has deep provide chain experience, led the spherical in Nauta is as a result of she views Nauta as a foundational firm within the new logistics tech stack. This new “tech stack for world commerce” is being formed by a singular second in time: quickly advancing AI capabilities intersecting with complicated commerce dynamics, comparable to tariffs, regional conflicts, and inflation, which are set to rework world commerce.
What are the milestones you propose to attain within the subsequent six months?
We’re centered on three priorities: increasing within the US, launching into new world markets, and hiring one of the best expertise to assist us scale.
What recommendation are you able to provide firms in New York that do not need a contemporary injection of capital within the financial institution?
My recommendation can be to remain centered and never chase each shiny object that comes your manner. With out contemporary capital, it’s much more essential to be artistic and scrappy in the way you construct. Give attention to fixing one downside very well, and pour your power into constructing wonderful relationships along with your first shoppers. For those who actually ship worth for them, they’ll turn out to be your greatest promoters and, in some ways, your only gross sales workforce. Capital helps, however readability, self-discipline, and buyer advocacy can take you simply as far within the early levels.
The place do you see the corporate going now over the close to time period?
As talked about, we’re centered on three priorities over the subsequent six months: develop within the US, launch into new world markets, and rent one of the best expertise to attain our mission.
What’s your favourite summer time vacation spot in and across the metropolis?
If I’m within the metropolis, Greenpoint in Brooklyn. Exterior of the Metropolis is Hudson Valley.
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