Zurich-based Archlet, a B2B SaaS application platform that empowers company buyers to make informed decisions in strategic sourcing, announced that it has secured $10M (approx €8.62M) in its Series A round of funding.
The fundraise comes early for Archlet, as it raised its $2.8M Seed round in January 2021. The additional capital will allow Archlet to further boost product development and to expand into new markets.
The round was led by HV Capital. Existing investors Wingman Ventures, Senovo, and La Famiglia also participated in this round. Business Angel Matthias Hilpert completed the round and said he will continue to support Archlet on its journey.
Pain point of the industry
Today, procurement departments face immense pressure to create bottom-line savings and at the same time diversify risks, increase sustainability, and improve supplier diversity. The sourcing software solutions capable of including these parameters are too complicated to use, making sourcing a tedious experience.
According to Tim Grunow, co-founder of Archlet, “Today’s procurement software is stuck in the past and Excel is still the go-to tool for collecting and analysing supplier quotations. But the times are changing, and the market for strategic sourcing software is being disrupted by increased demand for user-friendly products. At Archlet, we are leading the way with our mission to provide an unprecedented user-first experience where everyone in the department collaborates in the same tool.”
Archlet, with its sourcing software product, claims to free company buyers from the dreaded spreadsheet analysis. “Unlike traditional sourcing analysis solutions, which are mainly focused on simple price minimisation, Archlet lets users easily include all relevant data including non-cost components such as sustainability, risk, or diversity scores in their decision making. We believe Archlet can play a leading role in optimising buying decisions,” says Felix Kluehr, Partner at HV Capital.
“Advanced sourcing, made simple and smart”
Archlet was founded in 2019 by Lukas Wawrla, Jakob Manz, and Tim Grunow. The company was founded out of a data science consulting project at ETH Zürich. “We focus on combining our backgrounds in data science and machine learning with deep hands-on procurement expertise to rethink strategic sourcing and empower buyers to make better sourcing decisions faster.”
Archlet scans through supplier offers and creates transparency across relevant sources to enable data-based supplier negotiations and decision-making. This empowers buyers to identify the optimal sourcing strategy based on price and on other factors, such as sustainability, supply chain risks, or other qualitative parameters.
The company offers its cloud-based advanced sourcing solution to SMEs and large enterprises across different industries. Over the past 18 months, the Archlet team has grown from the 3 founders to more than 30 people who are serving customers around the world.
The company claims that the Archlet sourcing platform has helped businesses across Europe and the US to optimise more than $20B in spending. It’s customers report an additional financial savings of up to 15 per cent compared to previous purchasing activities, with an up to 10 fold decrease in manual activities.
Archlet’s clients include PepsiCo, Emmi & Deutsche Bahn.
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