Qualifyze, a key player in the pharmaceutical supply chain compliance sector based in Frankfurt, has recently revealed a successful $12 million funding round. The startup, established in 2019, is on track to achieve over $10 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR), highlighting its 100% year-over-year growth trajectory. This development underscores Qualifyze’s commitment to redefining its cloud-based audit data and application platform, connecting stakeholders within the pharmaceutical industry to ensure compliance with quality and sustainability standards.
Navigating pharma compliance challenges
HV Capital and Rheingau Founders, existing investors of Qualifyze, along with new investors HarbourVest Partners from the United States and H14, an Italian family office associated with the late Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, have collectively contributed to the $12 million funding round. This investment aims to expedite Qualifyze’s transformation into an end-to-end supply chain compliance data platform.
With a significant portion of its customer base located outside Germany (approximately 80%) and beyond Europe (around 20%), Qualifyze aims to solidify its international presence further. The recent funding not only supports its ongoing growth in existing markets but also facilitates entry into new geographical regions.
Pharmaceutical companies face stringent regulatory demands to ensure the security and compliance of their supply chains. Concurrently, the necessity to cut operational costs is driving companies to collaborate with outsourced service providers for regular supplier audits. Traditionally, these audits have relied on manual and paper-based processes, with limited technological integration and minimal post-audit data utilization.
Modernising auditing through technology
In contrast to conventional practices that yield isolated reports, Qualifyze captures comprehensive audit data at scale. Operating through its digital platform, the company offers an end-to-end solution, empowering customers to efficiently manage audits. This approach has already benefited over 1,000 pharmaceutical manufacturers, enhancing supply chain compliance and minimizing supplier qualification costs. Its customers include Merck KGaA, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. and Sanofi SA.
The German company recently introduced its “Supplier Intelligence” suite, an extensive tool equipping pharmaceutical companies with valuable statistics concerning supplier compliance levels and audit discoveries. By identifying trends and potential compliance risks, this suite empowers companies to proactively formulate risk mitigation strategies.
Structured audit data generation
With a network comprising over 200 local expert auditors and a database encompassing data from more than 2,000 suppliers, Qualifyze aims to take the lead in generating structured and analyzable GxP audit data. This data stems from on-site inspections across the pharmaceutical supply chain.
Further, their service plans offer unique flexibility to pharmaceutical companies. These plans offer access to a vast repository of audit data, enabling companies to purchase audit credits for various services, including audit reports, data analytics, and software solutions. This approach offers unparalleled insights into supplier compliance, promoting streamlined and cost-effective risk mitigation processes.
Joel Hwang, Managing Director at HarbourVest Partners, says: “At HarbourVest Partners, we have supported, alongside our general partners, many leading venture and growth businesses for decades across Europe and the Americas. Qualifyze stands out as an emerging leader in a space with tremendous potential for digital transformation. Their platform drives significant efficiencies for pharma companies in their audit processes and has the potential to become the platform of reference in this sector and many others. We are excited to back Qualifyze as they accelerate their expansion plans.”
“The speed of our growth and our continued success is proof of the value we are generating for our clients,” says Dr. David Schneider, CEO &Founder of Qualifyze. “We are not just transforming how supplier audits are being performed. Qualifyze is creating a new category of compliance data, which will allow our clients to make more informed decisions to increase drug safety for their patients and to better allocate investments into supply chain compliance, even beyond GxP. This funding will help us accelerate our mission to transform supply chain compliance in healthcare in a sustainable, data-driven manner.”
“Since our initial investment, Qualifyze achieved nothing less than becoming the global leader in quality compliance data of today’s pharmaceutical industry.” says Felix Klühr, Partner at HV Capital and one of Qualifyze’s first investors. “Serving 1,000+ pharmaceutical clients and more than doubling every year in a profitable manner is both a testament to the quality of the team and the regulatory tailwinds towards a harmonised quality approach in life science. We’re excited that the team chose to continue partnering with HV as part of HV’s strategy to provide the company with early and growth capital from initiation to IPO.”
