An entire industry exists surrounding supply chain management, and it’s projected to grow from $28.9 billion to $45.2 billion by 2027. One company working on solving the supply chain disruptions that have caused so much frustration and inefficiency in recent years is Anvyl, which uses data analytics to simplify complex supply chain processes for its customers. And leading Anvyl is founder and CEO Rodney Manzo, whose unorthodox trajectory took him from the U.S. Army, to direct-to-consumer startups, to Grand Central Tech.
But let’s back up. After getting his Bachelor's Degree in Management and Systems Engineering from the United States Military Academy at West Point, Manzo became an engineer officer in the U.S. Army. There, he had two different roles, which he describes as “kinetic vs. non-kinetic.” His kinetic role in the Army, as an Army Ranger sapper — also known as an elite combat engineer — saw him “jumping out of planes and blowing things up,” he recalls. But the non-kinetic part of his job, and the part that would go on to shape his career, was his role as a purchasing agent. He was “buying, building, and moving things around the world,” he says, “Which is supply chain on an army scale.” It was there, Manzo recalls, that he began understanding global supply chain issues and spotting the gaps and inefficiencies therein on a large scale.
After his time in the military, Manzo went to Apple, where he managed global supply. There, he found an issue: “We were throwing people at problems, and not technology, and everything was reactive,” he says. “We’d send dozens and dozens of Apple employees to factories to fix things. And I was like, How is this possible? Why am I using Excel? Why am I using pen and paper? Why am I on phone calls in the morning? And at night? All day? Why am I flying to China and Japan every month to figure out what's happening?”
Later, when he went to work at razor startup Harry’s, where he took on the role of Senior Director of Supply Chain, he encountered similar challenges. “I always say: people professionals have these tools that track their candidate pipelines. Meanwhile, we're using a manual Excel sheet that has been around for dozens and dozens and dozens of years. It just didn't make sense—especially when you're spending hundreds of millions of dollars, and everything's managed manually. It's frustrating and painful.”
In May 2017, Manzo founded Anvyl. At the time, he said, his thought was: “If I can't buy a solution, I'm going to at least try to be that solution. I don't care about titles. I don't actually care about being a founder. But I care about the problem of the supply chain.” Manzo likens Anvyl’s automation and intelligence capabilities to how CRM has transformed the way businesses interact with customers and manage business relationships.
As a new founder with no experience in fundraising, Manzo started from zero when it came to knowing how to raise money, or even find investors. After what he describes as some lucky meetings with amazing investors, he got his funding and he began hiring. Anvyl’s first office was across the street from Manzo’s office at Harry’s. Manzo remained working full-time at Harry’s for a few months and moonlighted at Anvyl before he made the jump and began working on Anvyl full-time. When one of his investors told him about Grand Central Tech, he said, it was a no-brainer to apply. “It just made sense,” he says. “Immediately, you have an ecosystem to help you.”
What he learned from his time at Grand Central Tech, he says, is “move fast, but be thoughtful. I’m a more conservative founder—I won't necessarily spend capital as fast as other founders and take risks like other founders, but going to Company Ventures helped me think through that by seeing other founders, and also just talking through things with the Company Ventures team.” Today, Anvyl still has its headquarters in the Company offices at 22 Vanderbilt Avenue.
Anvyl’s mission is to be “the operating system for global production,” Manzo says. By incorporating Anvyl’s fully managed SaaS-based service, brands and manufacturers can effectively manage their supply chains and bring greater visibility and efficiency to how they manage their supply chain.
Why build in New York? Because “it’s one of the best cities on the planet with some of the best and most diverse talent on the planet. You can speak to any investor on the planet. And prospect-wise, New York is a very strategic location for companies,” Manzo says. “I was out west in Silicon Valley. I understand that people rave about it. I think the diversity here is much stronger. And I think it's a better environment for starting a company.”