Photo: Suuchi Ramesh
North Bergen, New Jersey-based entrepreneur Suuchi Ramesh is solving a number of issues through her supply chain platform company Suuchi Inc.
Suuchi is essentially an end-to-end solutions provider for the fashion industry that is rapidly growing. It is now serving more than 200 brands and it also runs a team of in-house cutters and sewers across 100 factories in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York. And Suuchi’s revenue is also expected to grow by four times in 2019.
According to Forbes, Ramesh grew up in India and her grandfather ran a motorcycle manufacturing company that employed thousands of people. When Ramesh arrived in the U.S. twelve years ago, she received a Bachelor’s degree and an MBA. Then she worked in analytics at Intel. After working for a couple of tech startups that became unicorns, Ramesh decided to start her own company.
To get started, Ramesh built the Suuchi GRID — which is a product lifecycle management (PLM) app that can manage product information and ties into Suuchi’s manufacturing processes. The platform allows users to collaborate at multiple stages of the supply chain. And Suuchi takes parts of the sewing operations and automates them as much as possible. This includes tasks like steaming and packaging.
Plus Ramesh set up the Suuchi Learning Center for training sewers across its factories. The Learning Center is now also training for design and other specializations in the supply chain.
Another important aspect to Ramesh’s business is that it is bringing American manufacturing back. Suuchi is serving local markets and employing local people. In the next five years, Ramesh is planning to expand more into the U.S. — specifically in the Midwest and the South.
Recently, Suuchi announced it has raised $8 million in Series A funding from Edison Partners. With this investment, the company will accelerate sales growth, further scale operations and its network, and ensure its enterprise-readiness for the Suuchi GRID.
“This investment gives us the fuel to accelerate our mission to leverage powerful network effects to drive greater and faster sales for brands, create jobs for U.S.-based factories, and better the lives of our communities,” said Ramesh in a statement. “We are making these goals real by creating a platform that works for people who work and de-materializes the supply chain into a digital, local, on-demand world.”
By utilizing Suuchi’s platform, brands and retailers are able to design and produce millions of units and they have doubled sales. Plus they have improved margins by 25% in the first year and have delivered up to 20 times faster service to their customers. Now Suuchi’s platform has more than 100 domestic factories on its platform and has a capacity of 8 million units.
“The combination of Suuchi’s passionate vision, her team’s decades of deep apparel manufacturing expertise, and the speed to market realized from the platform is resonating in the market, as evidenced by notable emerging and enterprise brands adopting the Suuchi GRID and moving and consolidating their offshore production to Suuchi’s domestic network,” added Kelly Ford — a partner at Edison Partners and new board member. “We are proud to partner with the Suuchi team to continue to disrupt this $2 trillion industry and scale growth as a new standard for modern, consumer-driven fashion brands.”
There are more than 200 brands and retailers ranging from forward-thinking startups to large enterprises that are utilizing Suuchi for their supply chains. One of those companies includes Little Giraffe — a premium online baby boutique company.
“Our laser focus on sustaining premium-level production in the United States led us to Suuchi,” explained Little Giraffe CEO Trish Moreno. “This relationship has helped us digitize our supply chain while also providing much-needed transparency to the production process. We are also thrilled to be in a strategic partnership with another woman-run company that shares our unwavering commitment to enduring brand quality.”
Since Suuchi set up shop in New Jersey, the company received a $38 million tax credit from the state of New Jersey to grow its business in the state and to add 410 more employees in the next three years. Currently, Suuchi employs 120 people at its headquarters in New Jersey and it is recruiting for positions in sales, marketing, HR, finance, and software engineering.
