Germany’s Makersite bags €18.2M to help manufacturing companies solve product, supply chain complexities

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Stuttgart, Germany-based Makersite, a SaaS platform, announced on Tuesday that it has raised $18M (approximately €18.2M) in a Series A round of funding.

The round was led by Hitachi Ventures and Translink Capital, with participation from KOMPAS and Planet A. 

Makersite says the capital injection will expand its supply chain analysis capabilities and drive customer acquisition. The announcement comes three weeks after the company signed a partnership with Autodesk, a product design software platform. 

Makersite: What you need to know

Founded in 2018 by Neil D’Souza, former CTO of Thinkstep, Makersite helps development and procurement teams in manufacturing companies solve complex challenges around their products and supply chains through AI, data, and apps. 

The German company uses AI to map a company’s portfolio of products, suppliers, and manufacturing processes automatically against more than 140 material and supply chain databases to construct digital twins of each product. These digital twins include precise details about how the product is made, used, and disposed of.

It enables transparency and understanding of multiple factors, including environmental footprints, should-costing, and compliance risks. The company claims that its process is faster than any current approach. 

The company claims to have witnessed strong, profitable revenue and customer growth in the last 12 months. In 2021, 8+ Million LCAs (Life-cycle assessments) were processed through the cloud platform. Makersite’s customer portfolio includes Microsoft, Lush, Cummins, and Vestas. 

The company employs more than 30 employees across Europe, America, and Asia.  

D’Souza says, “We put decades of experience into solving a problem that has eluded the manufacturing industry until now. In an increasingly complex environment, how do you make better products faster? One of the answers we found is to simplify and decentralise decision-making by providing accurate, instantaneous, and actionable multi-criteria data on sustainability, cost, and risk implications of decisions. We were humbled by the industry response and have grown profitably, purely by word of mouth, until now. With this investment, we will increase delivery and go-to-market capacities to continue delivering our cutting-edge solution to many more customers who have transformed into the new normal of sustainable business.” 

Investors

KOMPAS is an early-stage venture capital firm that supports creating a more sustainable economy by backing innovative engineering solutions that reduce waste and CO2 emissions. The VC’s Fund I ($160m) backs Seed and Series A companies across Europe, Israel, and North America.

Sebastian Peck, Partner at KOMPAS, says, “Accelerating the decarbonisation of the built environment and manufacturing is a core investment theme for KOMPAS. Understanding a product’s impact across its lifecycle to make more sustainable design and procurement choices are critical to decarbonising our supply chains. Makersite enables companies to have actionable data and analytical capabilities to facilitate operational changes and create more sustainable and successful products. We are delighted to be involved in this funding round and look forward to supporting Neil and his team as the company scales up.” 

Translink Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in technology-based startups in the consumer, enterprise, and blockchain sectors. The firm has over $1B of assets under management.

Toshiya Otani, Managing Director at TransLink Capital, says, “Many manufacturers are facing the customer and regulatory pressures to reduce their carbon emissions. Makersite is one of the only platforms that allow manufacturers to drill down at the SKU level without the heavy manual work required.”

Planet A is an investment fund that partners with European green tech startups. The VC supports innovation in four key areas: climate mitigation, waste reduction, resource savings, and biodiversity protection. So far, the VC has invested in Traceless, Ineratec, C1, GoodCarbon, and Makersite.

Editorial team

The editorial team of Silicon Canals brings you technology news from the European startup ecosystem. 

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