RINGIL Advanced In The Digitalization Of Logistics, And This Year They'll Test The American Market

Last year, Ringil received an investment of 20 million crowns, with DEPO Ventures among the investors. Since then, Ringil has made a huge leap forward. While Dravecký and his team were launching the first live version of the application and fighting for their first clients two years ago, today, they're speaking about a scalable product that's being deployed at the largest companies in the Czech Republic. Ringil is used by companies such as Plzeňský Prazdroj, and Yankee Candle and local operations of firms like Eissmann Automotive, Witzenmann, a producer of metal parts, and packaging manufacturer Huhtamaki.

Ringil also has partners in other areas, such as providers of enterprise information systems (such as Asseco). They can offer the platform as an extension of their own product, offering their customers a much more comprehensive view of their own production and other processes. "We're also looking at other parts of the logistics chain. Ringil focuses on the sender of goods, usually the manufacturer. But we don't address the carrier. That's why we want to establish strategic partnerships with major players in logistics to allow our customers to contact the carrier directly and digitally," explains Dravecký.

Revolutionizing logistics processes through automation and flexibility

Ringil facilitates control over many diverse systems, hundreds of emails and telephone calls daily. It can be deployed virtually anywhere. "Our vision is a completely automated logistics, or at least freight transport. We want to build a company that will be here for decades and helps thousands of companies digitize and automate their logistics processes," says the young start-up founder. However, talking about the use of artificial intelligence, machine learning, or neural networks is still premature, although it may sound attractive to many managers. "Logistics still does not have enough data. And without data, artificial intelligence is completely useless. We aim to create the most flexible, modular, and easily configurable software to reach as many clients as possible. Then, based on that, we will think of how artificial intelligence can help us with the data. However, the market is not yet there, we need to work on that," says Dravecký.

What DEPO Ventures helped Ringil with

The thirty-one-year-old entrepreneur, who previously founded another logistics start-up Shipvio, is also considering expanding Ringil to foreign countries. He is planning another investment round in the second half of this year for this reason. "Before that, we want to improve the product itself. And we would like to try out other things in the Czech Republic first, such as sales through partners, before going abroad. If we succeed in the Czech market, we will succeed everywhere," says Dravecký.

The founder of Ringil sees a major advantage in the fact that the Czech Republic is a manufacturing country. Many foreign companies that already use Ringil have factories in other European countries besides their local branches. In these countries, Ringil could precisely deploy its platform through parent companies. According to Dravecký, this is just the first step. "As part of this planned seed round, we also want to try going to the USA. When we talk to people from the management of DHL and similar giant companies, they say that our product has potential there. This surprised us. One of the tasks for this year is therefore to test the American market. But we don't yet know to what extent," says Dravecký. He would also welcome DEPO Ventures as an investor in future investments. Last year's round also involved angel investor Isaac Applbaum from Silicon Valley, former top manager of DHL Alex Pilař and companies Principal Engineering and StartGuide. Before that, Ringil received investment from Logio and Byznys21 companies. "DEPO Ventures has already built a good reputation in Central Europe. The success of Tatum's development platform creator, who DEPO also has in its portfolio, has helped them. People from DEPO Ventures don't help us directly with the product, or with what we're developing. Logistics is very specific. But DEPO Ventures partner Michal Ciffra gave us good advice on positioning ourselves on the market and communicating with clients and the public," says Dravecký. In other words, how to sell Ringil well.

The founder of Ringil also points out one more thing that could be important for other entrepreneurs in a similar position. "DEPO Ventures has a large network of angel investors. They are mostly people who have already built some companies. In the Czech Republic, this is usually an industrial or manufacturing business. This represents an interesting reach for us," says Dravecký. However, new customers or mentors can also be found among foreign angel investors in the DEPO Ventures network.

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