About 20% to 30% of the entire inventory in the US is superfluous, with most of it ending up in the landfill. A startup named Sotira wants to help address this problem: she uses it to help companies upload and make money from their excess inventory. Sotira brands partners to charge millions of excess pounds, health and health, and cosmetics goods across the United States.
To promote its mission, the company has closed a round of funding in front of $ 2 million. Sotira plans to use new funds to expand its operations nationwide, specifically Midwest and Southeast.
The beginning, which was exhibited at Techcrunch Disupt Battlefield 200 2024, was founded by CEO Amrita Bhasin and Cto Gary Kwong. The duo met at UC Berkeley and linked their common interest in the e -commerce and logistics space. Bhasin and Kwong were running both of their companies that were focused on selling products previously, new or used previously owned.
The duo then started running a liquidation business together because they wanted to figure out how the space was operating before being thrown at the start of a company. They decided to throw a wide mesh before scratching on their mission with Sotira.
“We learned that the market opportunity to earn money from overload is great,” Bhasin Techcrunch told Bhasin. “It’s a multi -billion dollar market, and it’s a very manual space of old school, as the people we are talking about are doing things in pen and paper. They have never heard of chatgt, they don’t know what It is he.
Sotira helps to charge products that are close to their expiration date, articles that face storage capacity issues and highly ordered products. Verified suppliers can register in Sotira and link their storage capacity or their inventory. Sotira then matches the products with a buyer that will then take the pallets from the supplier depot.
Buyers are verified, brick and mortar shops across the country. They can share the UPC codes of the type of inventory they buy, and Sotira will use it to match them with inventory. Sotira automates compliance and facilitates transactions and logistics with buyers so that suppliers are paid after receipts. Sotira’s goal is to clean the surplus within a few days of obtaining inventory data.
In the past, brands would have to identify actions that they would not be able to sell to their main buyers, and then call different liquidators to compare offers and negotiate prices by hand. Sotira has brought this process to the Internet and allows suppliers to clean the inventory much faster.
Sotira charges a monthly fee for access; It also receives a percentage of income from each transaction on its platform.
While Sotira is useful for suppliers and buyers, Bahsin says Sotira is also proud of her ability to open up affordable approaches to premium products that people may be able to use. For example, Sotira works with many CPG beverage brands that end up uploading their excess inventory to subtract grocery stores.
“In the economy now, where you currently look at how fast food prices are rising, these are the categories that consumers buy the most,” Bahsin said. “There is so much value in opening the affordable access to these articles. Many of the buyers we work with are in rural areas. They are in areas that may be poorer, where consumers actually rely on buying stock stores, as they will not buy from a Whole Foods, they are buying from a deduction store. “
Bahsin also noted that since California has adopted legislation to stop grocery stores to throw food and drink, Sotira can now approach these companies and inform them that there is a market for their excess inventory.
Sotira plans to expand beyond food, drinks, health and cosmetics in the future and move to the clothing space. The company is interested in brands that want to help move their excess dresses and shoes, Bhasin said.
Sotira’s pre-fare financing includes participation from unusual enterprises, night capital, K5 global, ritual capital, and others.
