Startups that were born in response to pandemic-era supply chain difficulties are having a moment, as companies look to prepare for U.S. tariffs whose parameters and start dates remain in flux, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Chicago-based Project44, for instance, in recent weeks has helped large multinational customers in retail and other sectors customize software to determine whether shipments will arrive before or after a tariff date, and then break down the costs of trying to get ahead of the levy versus paying the extra cost, the company says.
“Is it cheaper to put products on an airplane and have it arrive before the tariff date, or stay on the ocean and pay the 20 percent?” Project44 Founder and Chief Executive Jett McCandless says, referring to a duty on Chinese imports. “It’s going to be product by product.”
Besides a series of tariffs on merchandise from China, the Trump administration has also enacted 25% levies on goods from Mexico and Canada, but on Thursday postponed some of them till next month.
Another supply chain analytics startup, New York-based Altana, launched a service in January that it calls a “tariff simulator,” which allows clients to quantify the financial impact of tariffs and find alternative suppliers globally that might not be subject to tariffs.
“There’s definitely a ton of demand,” Co-founder and CEO Evan Smith says. “There’s a lot of big shocks in the system and that tends to be very helpful for our business.”
Of the eight large enterprise customers Altana has closed deals with since releasing the software, five have come in the past week and a half, Smith says.
