BackOps AI raises $6M to solve warehouse inefficiencies

McCarthy identified a number of logistics inefficiencies while previously working for e-commerce giant Amazon alongside its warehouse operations teams. That’s where AI comes to the rescue.

“What I saw was a staggering amount of manual effort workers toggling between spreadsheets, portals, and emails just to track a shipment, file a claim, or respond to a customer,” he told FreightWaves in an emailed statement. “That is a $100 [billion] inefficiency and one that AI is finally ready to solve.”

McCarthy told FreightWaves that since its founding last year, BackOps is already saving frontline teams three to five hours daily. In one warehouse, he said the company now automates over 80% of inbound customer inquiries.

“A leading 3PL cut its manual workload by 60%, saving the equivalent of three full-time employees while maintaining 98.3% task accuracy,” McCarthy said. “An industrials manufacturer slashed order inquiry times from 30 minutes to under 2 and improved [service level agreements] by 14 points.”

BackOps’ flagship automation product named “Relay” is designed to lightly integrate with existing tools like enterprise resource planning and warehouse management system platforms – all while being easy to adopt and scale over time.

The company aims to launch additional products to expand Relay’s capabilities from reactive to proactive automation.

“BackOps has an incredibly clear vision and a team that understands the pain points of logistics from the inside out,” said Rachel Holt, co-founder and general partner at Construct Capital, in the release. “The opportunity to bring intelligent automation to such a massive and underserved industry is enormous and BackOps is already delivering tangible [return on investment] to customers.”