Nauta was founded just a year and a half ago on the premise that global supply chains run on unglamorous but essential work, and that this work is long overdue for a technological upgrade. Built by a team of technologists and logistics obsessives, the company set out to build an AI-native operating system for importers.
The company has launched a new Nauta Inventory Optimization Engine, an AI-powered tool designed to predict stockout risk and help shippers plan inventory more proactively. The engine integrates with ERP, WMS, and TMS systems, bringing structure and intelligence to data that has historically been too fragmented to use effectively. With SKU-level visibility and predictive analytics, teams across procurement, transportation, merchandising, and operations can finally speak the same language. Instead of scrambling after the fact, shippers can understand where their risks lie and which decisions will protect revenue.
“Shippers need clarity on where their inventory is during the holiday season. They can only serve their customers if they know how it’s moving, and what’s likely to run short,” said Valentina Jordan, CEO and Co-Founder of Nauta. “The AI-powered Nauta Inventory Optimization Engine is built on our industry-first unified data infrastructure layer. This is the data foundation shippers need to make decisions and truly leverage AI for their benefit. We are giving shippers a clear understanding of their exposure down to the SKU-level. Customers can see where stockout risk exists and take action before issues happen, saving them hundreds of thousands in lost revenue and penalties. These benefits are only possible when a shipper’s data is able to be harmonized and used in real-time through an AI-native solution like Nauta.”
Across the United States, most importers are grappling with a familiar set of challenges: disconnected systems, inconsistent product codes, siloed teams, and a constant pressure to balance overstocking with the costly risk of stockouts. Traditional workflows depend on retrospective reports and manual decision-making, approaches that break down under the demands of a peak holiday season or an unexpected spike in customer demand.
Nauta saw the opportunity to build something different, something capable of pulling order data, logistics updates, emails, documents, and context into one harmonized source of truth. In doing so, they believed they could give shippers the power to act before problems unfold.
Inventory is notoriously one of the hardest problems in supply chain, and Nauta intentionally chose to tackle it first. The company has spent its early years building the data foundation required to solve what is, at its core, an $80-billion-a-year problem for U.S. retailers.
Stockouts cascade far beyond a missed sale. Distributors lose contracts, manufacturers suffer penalties, and every team downstream feels the impact. For many Nauta clients, fulfillment rates hover between 80% and 90%. A shift of even half a percentage point can translate into millions of dollars in preserved revenue. Nauta’s leadership believes that in a business where margins are thin and expectations high, even small movements of the needle are transformative.
The strength of Nauta’s engine comes from its agentic AI layer, which is designed to learn the specific tribal knowledge embedded within each organization. Nauta’s system understands context, how a customer defines safety stock, how internal teams approve replenishment, and how exceptions are handled.
The AI observes workflows, suggests actions based on business rules and role-specific needs, and then executes once a human approves. Over time, users can grant the AI more autonomy as confidence grows. This closed feedback loop helps companies transition from reactive firefighting to proactive management.
Buoyed by $7 million in seed funding and rapid revenue growth, Nauta is already thinking beyond inventory. The company is exploring how to support one of the last unmodernized links in the supply chain: payments. With goods, data, and money intertwined, Nauta believes its platform can eventually give importers visibility and leverage across all three. If the company succeeds, it won’t just be optimizing shipments or stock levels; it will be redefining how global importers operate in a world where real-time intelligence is no longer optional but essential.
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