Colosseum FD in a fulfillment center (courtesy of Colosseum)
Coliseum Corporation, a South Korea-based fulfillment startup, is aiming to take over the world with its nationwide and international warehouse network and its proprietary artificial intelligence-powered one-stop logistics system, “Colo.”
“We plan to focus more on international cross-border logistics services,” Coliseum founder and CEO Park Jin-soo said in a recent interview with Korea Economic Daily.
“Five years of experience in local business does not guarantee the success of a global business. There are many challenges due to differences in culture, customs, regulations and habits, but we are solving them one by one.”
A South Korean logistics startup is aiming to become a bridge between Asia and the US as part of its global expansion plans.
In November 2022, Coliseum launched a global version of Colo, an AI-powered, one-stop fulfillment program designed to streamline logistics processes and improve efficiency.
The company recently secured logistics centers in the United States, Japan, Taiwan, Malaysia and Thailand, and in February established a U.S. subsidiary in Los Angeles to enter the world’s largest consumer market.
The company is also an official partner of the Korea Small and Medium Enterprise Promotion Agency’s Joint Logistics Program for Online Exports, and all e-commerce sellers who use Coliseum’s global fulfillment services are eligible to receive state subsidies covering 70% of Coliseum’s service fees.
Park Jin-soo, founder and CEO of the Coliseum (Courtesy of the Coliseum)
The company is currently revamping its website to better serve international customers, Park said, which he hopes will speed up its global expansion.
COLO and individual warehouse networks
Founded in 2019, Coliseum’s unconventional approach to logistics has seen it rapidly expand its presence in the country’s logistics market, long dominated by large local and multinational companies.
Logistics businesses are typically asset-based, requiring companies to own their own warehouses, fulfillment centers and delivery transportation systems, but Coliseum’s business revolves around technology, the company’s CEO said.
At the core of the company’s business is Colo, an AI-powered fulfillment program that takes orders, maps shipping data, recommends package sizes and materials, manages inventory, handles customer service such as complaints and refunds, and handles legal and cross-border tax issues.
Colo also enables private warehouses to provide end-to-end fulfillment services.
Coro (Courtesy of the Colosseum)
Coliseum isn’t building new fulfillment centers for its own operations, instead partnering with 45 existing warehouses both domestically and internationally to create a vast network of fulfillment centers.
Each center will handle different items based on location, facility type and infrastructure, and will provide on-demand services with Colo, meaning e-commerce merchants can partner with the warehouse that best suits their needs.
The network consists of 39 fulfillment centers in South Korea and the remaining six in other countries, including the US, Japan, and Thailand.
“Building on our partnership with the warehouses, our cooperation has expanded to other players in the logistics value chain, allowing us to offer integrated (logistics) services together,” the Colosseo founder said. “The expansion of our partnership has created more opportunities.”
Colo is linked to numerous multinational marketplaces and e-commerce platforms, including Amazon.com, Coupang, Shopify, Shopee and Lazard, making it easier for small merchants to sell their products to customers.
Colosseum will also assign a Fulfillment Director (FD) to each fulfillment center in its network.
FD is the facilitator that ensures that Colo is applied error-free at each fulfillment center. Thanks to FD, Colosseum’s fulfillment center hosts can provide seamless and customized logistics services to their various clients, Park explained.
Coliseum Fulfillment Center (Courtesy of the Coliseum)
Rapid growth and R&D investment
Thanks to its technology-based logistics infrastructure, Colosseum’s performance has continued to improve since its inception.
The company’s revenue has grown at a compound annual rate of 180 percent over the past five years, and Park said the company expects even higher revenue growth this year.
The company provides fulfillment services for e-commerce businesses as well as supermarket chains and restaurant franchises, and also handles freight forwarding.
Park said the company shares revenue with its warehouse partners in its fulfillment center network based on services.
Coliseum is primarily investing in technology development and hiring for research and development to advance Colo and its machine learning technology, and to validate and improve the quality of existing data collected from the processing package, Coliseum’s CEO said.
He added that of the company’s more than 80 employees, 40 percent are involved in research and development.
Earlier this year, the company was selected as one of 20 Korean startups to receive support from Asan Voyager, a program designed to help Korean startups expand into the U.S. by providing acceleration, coaching, community learning and long-term residency support.
Coro (Courtesy of the Colosseum)
Donations from overseas
The logistics startup has raised a total of more than 10 billion won ($7.2 million) in both pre-series A and Series A rounds. The Series A round, which attracted funding mainly from Korean investors, was completed in October last year.
Coliseum is aggressively pursuing global expansion and hopes to raise money from overseas venture capitalists in its next funding round, but Park said he has no plans in place yet.
“It is important for us to gain greater visibility (of our supply chain) and scale globally, so we hope to raise funding from global venture capital firms once we have established ourselves in our next key markets, such as the US and Asia,” Park said.
With the rapid growth of the e-commerce market, the global logistics market is expected to continue to grow as more goods cross borders.
“With new e-commerce platforms and services emerging every day, we expect to see increased demand for faster and more seamless delivery from logistics services. This represents a great opportunity for our company,” Park said.
“We provide services that streamline warehouse logistics workflows. At the same time, we hope to make product transportation more convenient and efficient, making online shopping a refined and seamless experience and achieving high customer satisfaction.”
Please email Sookyung Seo at skseo@hankyung.com.
This article was edited by Jennifer Nicholson Breen.
