SkyCell to focus on growth across US, Asia, closes $116mn Series D

Swiss-based SkyCell has closed its $116 million Series D with $59 million from Tybourne Capital Management and CC Industries.

This follows a $57 million equity investment from Catalyst, M&G Investments’ purpose-led private assets strategy, says an official release from SkyCell. "The investment will be used for the continued expansion of SkyCell’s global footprint with a key focus on growth across the U.S. and Asia."

SkyCell has developed a comprehensive approach to protecting the pharmaceutical supply chain through a combination of IP protected temperature controlled containers, software and big data analytics, the release added. "Every month, SkyCell containers are used to protect more than $2.5 billion of pharma goods, including hundreds of millions of doses of vaccines, cancer treatments, diabetes care and diagnostic solutions for patients around the world."

Protecting pharma goods is built on its proprietary cold chain technology as well as its software platform, SkyMind, which streamlines shipment and asset management through automation and real-time visibility, the release added. "SkyMind allows pharma companies and their suppliers to make better decisions in designing supply chains on three key factors: risk, cost and CO2. With access to historical data from its large connected container fleet as well as advanced forecasting analytics, SkyMind is able to use data to prevent the loss of medications with better predictability. The Decarbonize tool is part of the software suite, enabling clients to predict, track and report CO2 emissions as well as optimise routes to minimise their carbon footprint."

Richard Ettl, Co-Founder and CEO, SkyCell says: “It is such an exciting time to be a technology provider to the pharma industry as the sector experiences fast growth from new, blockbuster biologics coming to market. At the same time, the industry has recognised the need to decarbonise the supply chain as more than 70 percent of pharma is shipped in a one-way solution, which will shortly see fees introduced for disposal. Our reusable 1500X container saves, on average, 50 percent CO2 or in absolute terms eight tonnes CO2e per use. This means for a typical pharma customer today we save more than 250,000 tonnes of CO2 every year without compromising quality.

"And finally, digitalisation is coming to pharma supply chains – moving away from manual worksheets to integrated workflows that leverage S+O data (simulated and operational data) from our proprietary pool of billions of data points. Combined with the power of AI, this enables significant reductions in both cost and risk for our customers. With this new investment, we can further optimise supply chains and create truly sustainable logistics.”

Bosun Hau, Managing Director and Head of Private Equity, Tybourne Capital Management adds: “I am delighted to join SkyCell’s board at this seminal moment in the company’s growth. With its lead in hardware as well as software and tracking platform offering, SkyCell is well positioned to become the technology partner of choice to the global pharmaceutical industry well beyond its current cold-chain logistics business.

"Global supply chains are becoming increasingly complex and managing risk is a board level issue for nearly every sector - for pharmaceutical companies, in particular, it is mission critical for getting life-saving medications into the hands of patients. SkyCell has developed a comprehensive state-of-the-art system combining hardware, software and big data analytics that is transforming a pharmaceutical logistics industry that has seen little innovation over the past several decades.”