The round will enable the startup to scale its platform, continue to grow its customer base and expand its European footprint
21st September 2022, Vienna – Prewave, the AI platform that helps businesses predict, find, understand and categorise the risks affecting their suppliers, has raised €11m in Series A funding. The round was co-led by KOMPAS and Ventech, who renewed its support after the company’s Seed round, with participation from early-stage investors aws Gründerfonds, IST cube, seed + speed, Segnalita, Speedinvest and Working Capital Fund. The investment follows a strong year for Prewave with ten-fold revenue growth over the last ten months, a team that has tripled in size and an impressive roster of clients including ABinBev, AUDI, BMW, Porsche, PWC, Toyota and Zurich Insurance.
Prewave uses its AI-powered platform to analyse millions of online sources in more than fifty languages to find, categorise and directly address the risks that might impact supply chains. The platform covers a wide variety of risks with suppliers including human rights issues, sustainability risks and supply chain legislation compliance. Risk alerts are sent directly to businesses who can contact their suppliers to resolve issues and mitigate disruptions – something that is becoming non-negotiable as supply chain legislation continues to tighten across Europe.
Prewave is a spin-off from Vienna University of Technology and was founded in 2017 by Dr. Lisa Smith and Harald Nitschinger who had a shared vision to ensure technology plays a more significant role in making supply chains more sustainable. The scale-up will use the investment to expand the platform’s supply chain analysis capabilities and drive customer acquisition in new European markets. Prewave will also use the investment to hire more talent with plans to double employee numbers by the end of the year.
Dr. Lisa Smith, Co-Founder of Prewave says: “As businesses manage globally distributed suppliers, the need for transparency across the entire supply chain is evident. Thanks to artificial intelligence and automated language processing we have made it possible for businesses to identify risks in their supply chain in real-time so they can take quick, effective and corrective actions. Backed with the new investment we will take the platform to the next level, creating a multi-tier supply chain risk solution covering the full risk life cycle”
Talia Rafaeli, Partner at Kompas says: “Global supply chains are exposed to more risk than ever before and this can have serious social, reputational and financial repercussions. The Prewave team has built a platform that empowers businesses to take a proactive and considered approach towards their supply chains and it is something that we are increasingly seeing as critical to a business’ success. With a stellar founding team, state-of-the-art technology and an impressive list of customers, we are delighted to be part of Prewave’s journey and look forward to seeing them go from strength to strength.”
Stephan Wirries, Partner at Ventech says: “Ventech is proud to see Prewave’s impressive growth trajectory in a short period of time, and we are beyond delighted to renew our support after its Seed round in 2020. Prewave is the solution for businesses and their suppliers given the macro trends and uprise of supply chain disruptions. They are also a fantastic asset for companies’ readiness for current and increasing regulations like the German Supply Chain Act. We are thrilled to continue our partnership with the Prewave team and their visionary binomial founders to lead the company to the next level and bring positive impact to a larger industry.”
About Kompas
Kompas is an early-stage venture capital firm funding breakthrough innovations that accelerate digital transformation and industrial automation across the built environment. Founded in October 2021, Kompas supports the creation of a more sustainable economy by backing innovative engineering solutions that dramatically reduce waste and CO2 emissions. Kompas is led by Partners Sebastian Peck and Talia Rafaeli and Andreas Strasser and is headquartered in Copenhagen with offices in Amsterdam, Berlin and Tel Aviv. Fund I ($160m) backs Seed and Series A companies across Europe, Israel and North America.
For more information, visit www.kompas.vc
About Ventech
Ventech is a pioneering early-stage international venture capital firm with a strong digital bias. Founded in 1998, Ventech supports the most innovative and visionary technology entrepreneurs with global ambition. Thanks to its dual-structured platform, Ventech has dedicated funds for Europe (Paris, Munich, Berlin and Helsinki) and Asia (Shanghai and Hong Kong).
Since its creation, Ventech has raised more than 900 million euros and made more than 200 investments (including Vestiaire Collective, Passion.io, Ogury, Picanova, Veo, Reveal, Speexx) and more than 80 exits (Fintecsystems – acquired by Tink Believe (BLV.PA) – listed on Euronext; Arteris (AIP) listed on Nasdaq).
For more information, visit www.ventechvc.com
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About Prewave
Prewave heralds a new era of supply chain transparency, resilience & sustainability: With the mission of improving supply chain sustainability and resilience at heart, Prewave uses publicly available data from local news, social media and other databases in order to understand and report on risks impacting suppliers and commodities along every tier of the supply chain. Prewave’s AI algorithm analyses sources in more than 50 languages across 100+ risk categories to ensure that no disruption goes unnoticed.
