Archlet secures $2.8m to fuel its growth

Procurement software company Archlet offering an AI-based strategic sourcing platform, today announces that it has completed a $2.8 million oversubscribed seed round led by Munich-based Senovo and Berlin-based La Famiglia. The funds will fuel growth and allow the startup to democratize data-based decision making in strategic sourcing. 

Alongside Senovo and La Famiglia are further investors including Nicolaus Schefenacker, David Nothacker and Julius Köhler, the founders of unicorn start-up sennder. Existing investors Wingman Ventures, Flavio Pfaffhauser (Founder of Beekeeper) and Karin Hagen-Gierer (Chief Procurement Officer at Ardagh Group) also participated in the round. 

The capital will enable Archlet to address supply chain challenges as companies are under increasing pressure to create bottom-line savings through their procurement departments while also incorporating non-price parameters in order to diversify risks, increase sustainability and improve supplier diversity. This pressure was greater than ever in 2020 when global supply chains were put under unprecedented stress due to the global pandemic crisis. Existing sourcing software solutions are mainly focused on simple price analysis, and they are complicated to use, making sourcing a tedious experience for company buyers.

Archlet’s procurement technology enables buyers and category managers to quickly enter supplier negotiations backed by relevant data. The software frees buyers from manual, Excel-based offer analysis and guides them to the optimal award strategy in their sourcing events. It empowers buyers to include non-cost components such as sustainability, risk or diversity scores into the bid analysis and award decision. An easy-to-use interface combined with the ability to integrate into existing procurement workflows (e.g. with SAP Ariba) has helped Archlet take off.

Among its customers are SMEs and large corporations in Europe and in the US, such as PepsiCo, Emmi, Deutsche Bahn and Stadler Rail. They report average additional financial savings of up to 15% compared to previous purchasing activities, with an up to tenfold decrease in manual activities. In 2020, more than $10 billion in spending has been optimized through the Archlet sourcing platform.

“The procurement tech stack is due for an overhaul. Buyers want to unlock the potential of advanced analytics and intelligent automation but still lack a user-friendly tool to do so. With its intuitive end-to-end platform, Archlet brings seamless, data-driven sourcing to every buyer in an organization. We are excited about the extent to which Archlet increases efficiency and facilitates financial savings for its customers. Above all, the team impressed us with their ambition, speed and ability to build a truly customer-centric product”, says Mona Müller of Senovo.

Archlet was founded in 2019 out of a student consulting project by Lukas Wawrla, Jakob Manz, and Tim Grunow. The three founders met during their engineering studies at ETH Zurich. They were part of the student-led consulting company ETH juniors. (Press release / RAN)