How Nutrad uses AI to bring better collaboration to the supply chain

In a city that's home to logistics giants like Coyote, FourKites, and Project44, a new wave of startups is tackling supply chain collaboration. Nutrad is using AI to bring better communication and coordination across the complex web of suppliers, manufacturers, and distributors.

Chicago is a logistics juggernaut thanks to its central location and robust transportation infrastructure. Home to firms like Coyote Logistics, FourKites, Project44 and other large players, the city has established itself as a major force for logistics and supply chain innovation. Dozens of promising early-stage logistics and supply chain companies have launched in recent years in Chicago, including one startup with its sights set on removing friction and complexity from the supply chain using AI. Nutrad , founded in 2023 and based at TeamWorking by TechNexus , uses AI to match disparate data between manufacturers and retailers for more smooth and efficient collaboration. By providing software that allows companies to optimize across and between trade partners, it can provide insight that feeds a company’s marketing, analytics, consumer engagement and more, CEO and founder John Sexton Abrams said. “If the next wave of supply chain is the digital umbrella that governs all of it, you can connect not only all of your suppliers and all your trade partners, but you can connect all your consumers,” Abrams said. “The digital side of the supply chain unlocks a wave of insight about consumer behavior, but also your supplier behavior as well, and that can lead to a whole bunch of profit that is locked up in waste in the supply chain today.” Nutrad was incubated at the University of Chicago as part of the school’s Transform accelerator, a program housed within the Polsky Center’s Deep Tech Ventures initiative that supports AI startups. Nutrad’s technology is built on Databricks and the company is part of the Databricks Startup Program. Building in Chicago, growing at TeamWorking The startup, which has raised over $1.3 million to date, has benefited greatly from being based in Chicago, Abrams said. “It's helped our story a lot because when we say we're supply chain and Chicago and backed by University of Chicago, people pay attention to that,” he said. “Since Sears came [to Chi

By Jim Dallke at TechNexus Venture Collaborative