Makersite, a Stuttgart-based SaaS startup that helps manufacturing enterprises solve complex challenges around their products and supply chains, has raised $18M in a Series A round led by Hitachi Ventures and Translink Capital, with participation from KOMPAS and Planet A.
The German startup will use the funds to expand its supply chain analysis capabilities and drive customer acquisition.
Neil D’Souza, the founder of Makersite, 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 decentralize 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.”
Helping manufacturing companies in decision making
Neil D’Souza, former CTO of Thinkstep, founded Makersite in 2018 to help development and procurement teams in manufacturing companies to make better decisions about what to buy and from where.
Makersite’s AI automatically maps a company’s portfolio of products, suppliers, and manufacturing processes against more than 140 material and supply chain databases. It then constructs granular, precise digital twins of each product and how they are made, used, and disposed of.
It enables transparency and understanding of multiple factors, including environmental footprints, should-costing, and compliance risks, faster than any current approach. The company operates similar to Prewave, the AI platform that helps businesses predict, find, understand and categorise the risks affecting their suppliers
Their customer portfolio includes Microsoft, Lush, Cummins, and Vestas. In 2021, 8+ Million LCAs (Life-cycle assessments) were processed through the cloud platform.
Currently, the company employs more than 30 employees across Europe, America, and Asia.
Sebastian Peck, Partner at KOMPAS, says, “Accelerating the decarbonization 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 decarbonizing 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.”
Toshiya Otani, Managing Director at TransLink Capital, says: “Many manufacturers are facing 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.”
Nick de la Forge, Co-founder, and Partner at Planet A Ventures, says, “We are witnessing an unprecedented unification of all industries, aiming to decarbonize and depollute our supply chains. The Makersite technology allows companies to gain the granular product insights necessary to drive a sustainable transformation. We are proud to support further Neil and the Makersite-team in leading this global ambition with their award-winning software.”
