Packmatic has raised €15 million in a Series A funding round set to facilitate the expansion of its SaaS-enabled, B2B digital packaging marketplace in Europe and help product companies optimize the speed, cost, and sustainability of their packaging processes.
Led by EQT Ventures, the funding round saw participation from HV Capital, xDeck, and high-profile angel investors, including the founders of online retailer Zalando. It is anticipated that the money will also help Packmatic invest further in software and grow the business by acquiring industry experts.
According to Smithers, the packaging market is valued at €1 trillion globally. Yet customers and suppliers alike are said to be struggling with high supply fragmentation and a lack of digitalization; these roadblocks are preventing full price transparency, hindering sourcing processes, and impeding businesses from choosing the best-fit supplier to buy from, Packmatic explains.
To overcome these issues, its fully digital, data-driven ‘one-stop shop’ brings together over 300 packaging suppliers across Europe. Large FMCG brands, industrial companies, and medium-sized product companies can use the platform to match with high-quality, adapted, and specialized packaging suppliers in a process expected to unlock average cost savings of more than 15%.
As well as saving customers both time and money, the unified platform is said to offer sustainability-minded packaging alternatives that may not be readily available to many businesses. In turn, the platform is expected to serve as a streamlined, user-friendly sourcing platform that unlocks cost and time savings while increasing access to more environmentally friendly packaging materials.
Matthias Geiss, co-founder and managing director at Packmatic, stated: “The packaging market has long been overlooked and underserviced – packaging is integral to supply chains and yet the sourcing process is slow and disjointed, which is especially painful for SMEs.
“Packmatic’s data-driven platform delivers meaningful cost savings and efficiencies to customers, while helping them to meet their environmental goals. With demand for responsible packaging solutions rising rapidly as businesses race to decarbonize across every stage of the value chain, Packmatic is promoting industry change with a solution that is cost-effective, efficient, and helps companies to reduce their plastic and carbon footprint.”
Rania Belkahia, partner at EQT Ventures, added: “The European packaging market boasts an impressive valuation, but remains opaque, fragmented, and crucially, largely non-digital. Packmatic’s platform provides a unique solution– a cost-effective, fully digital marketplace championing the shift to low-carbon packaging.
“We’re excited to be partnering with founders Matthias, Jonas, and Paul, and believe Packmatic’s business fundamentals could not be better aligned with the current macro environment. With pricing pressures rising on companies in every industry and sustainability at the top of the global agenda, the company’s tech platform is perfectly poised to disrupt the market and become a category leader.”
The announcement comes after the launch of the not-for-profit packaging data-sharing platform GING. Its cloud-based software is designed to store and share consumers’ packaging data along company supply chains in a quick, secure, and user-friendly process.
Another recent funding round saw footprint software startup Pickler raise €500,000; the system is set to help packaging companies calculate, share, and reduce their emissions effectively, as well as overcome greenwashing in sales and marketing.
Additionally, Vytal’s tech platform for business-to-business-to-consumer (B2B2C) reusable packaging was nominated as a finalist under the Driving the Circular Economy at the Sustainability Awards 2023.
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