– FRANCE, Paris – Alkemics, a platform enabling brands to launch products with retailers, has raised €21 million in a Series C funding round, as it experiences soaring demand from grocers and suppliers responding to the rapid shift to omnichannel shopping.
Already well-established in France and in the UK, Alkemics will use the new funds raised to launch in other parts of Europe, beginning with Germany, Benelux and Scandinavia.
Growth stage fund Highland Europe has joined the company’s investors, while Cathay Innovation, Index Ventures, SEB Alliance and Serena Capital have renewed their support. Analysts now expect the online grocery market to grow by 25% in 2020, having seen sales leap by 30% during April.
Since raising €20 million in 2016, Alkemics has worked with France and the UK’s largest grocery retailers (including E.Leclerc, Intermarché, Casino, Tesco and Ocado) to digitize their commercial processes with more than 17,000 brands. The platform connects retailers like Intermarché and Tesco to multinational suppliers such as Nestlé, as well as small local producers. In 2019, more than 7.5 million messages were exchanged through the platform.
Building on three years of collaboration and innovation with the company’s key clients, the Alkemics platform has digitized the different stages of supplier-retailer relations: product discovery, listing, and sales across all channels. As consumers increasingly demand very detailed information and greater transparency about the products they consume, Alkemics has proved to be the ideal tool for retailers and suppliers who need to share rich information quickly and consistently.
An ever-faster digital transformation for businesses
The COVID-19 crisis has shown how manufacturers and retailers need to be able to react and collaborate in real-time to meet consumer needs. Using Alkemics, retailers were able to rapidly source substitutes for out-of-stock products and secure new lines of supply. As pressure grew on supply chains, exacerbated by remote working, many suppliers began using the platform to start conversations with retailers and to sell their excess products.
“Our aim is to make B2B business quick, easy and interactive. Any manufacturer should be able to put a product on the market as easily as if they were posting a message on a social network, and any store should be able to find the products that consumers are looking for by simply searching through an app” said Co-founder and CEO, Antoine Durieux. “The Alkemics platform is helping thousands of suppliers and retailers across Europe to work closely together, to simplify their collaboration, to speed up products go-to-market and to ensure that product data is always as transparent and up to date as possible”.
“The last two months have demonstrated to everyone how retail technology is a critical part of our infrastructure. Alkemics’ high level of technological functionality and ultra-flexible data model can tackle all different verticals in the retail industry and is, therefore, able to respond rapidly and effectively to unprecedented levels of demand, at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic in Europe. As things start to return to normal, retailers and suppliers will want to continue with this new digitized collaboration through the platform, which has helped to increase their productivity as well as ensuring that the shopper has all the information they need to make an informed purchase,” said Tony Zappala, Partner at Highland Europe.
Michel-Edouard Leclerc, President of the leading distribution network in France, E.Leclerc, said of the retail tech company (via linkedin – 12/2019): “Alkemics has understood the need for collaboration, centralisation and simplification in retail, and has truly contributed to the public good through their work! In 2019, all of E-Leclerc’s entities began using Alkemics to communicate with their suppliers (from SMEs to multinationals). And this is a true virtuous circle that benefits our consumers, as product information can also be used in consumer apps! Alkemics has become the indispensable platform for retail.”
About Alkemics
Alkemics enables suppliers and retailers to share product data (composition, packaging data, labels, visuals, rich content, etc.) via a secure platform. Large retailers (E. Leclerc, Intermarché, Casino, Metro, Tesco, Ocado and more) use the platform to discover, list or launch products from more than 16,000 brands. Brands and suppliers use the platform to increase their visibility among retailers, as well as to offer greater transparency to their consumers, as they can share their product catalog across all types of channels. With a team of 90 people, the French scale-up offers a variety of career opportunities in France and in Europe and has recently joined the Soonicorn Club 2020 by Tracxn.
The last fundraising of €20 million (one of the 10 largest in the IT sector in France in 2016) was led by Cathay Innovation and Serena Capital, in collaboration with Index Ventures, Partech and SEB.
For more information: https://www.alkemics.com
About Highland Europe
Highland Europe invests in exceptional growth-stage software and internet companies. Active in Europe since 2003 as Highland Capital Partners and formally launched in 2012, Highland Europe has raised over €1 billion and has invested in companies such as Adjust, Bitmovin, ContentSquare, Featurespace, GetYourGuide, JobTeaser, Malwarebytes, MatchesFashion, NewVoiceMedia, Nexthink, Smartly.io and WeTransfer. Highland’s collective history of investments across the US, Europe and China includes 46 IPOs and 19 billion-dollar-plus companies.
For more information: http://www.highlandeurope.com/
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