Bendi, an AI-driven platform that helps companies handle and mitigate enterprise disruption, sustainability challenges and reputational dangers of their provide chains, has introduced it has raised €960k in pre-seed funding.
Led by Birmingham-based VC Midven, a part of the worldwide Future Planet Capital fund, the spherical was additionally participated in by Heartfelt Capital in Berlin, Chasing Rainbows in San Francisco, in addition to angels and Innovate UK.
The worldwide provide chain administration market, which was valued at nearly $30 billion in 2022, is projected to achieve $85 billion by 2033. Rising provide chain complexities, evolving sustainability requirements and elevated regulatory pressures have left firms struggling to determine and mitigate dangers throughout their complicated and sprawling world provide chains.
Based in 2020, Bendi addresses the problem of managing world provide chain threat with its flagship platform, Prism, which automates provide chain mapping and ESG threat assessments. Utilizing AI to determine, analyse, and classify over 100 threat indicators – together with human rights violations, environmental hazards, and governance considerations – in real-time throughout a number of knowledge sources and in over 35 languages, Prism supplies companies with a sooner, cheaper option to floor dangers that will in any other case stay hidden deep inside their provide chains.
Traditionally, provide chain threat administration has been a sluggish, handbook course of involving provider questionnaires, indexes and on-site audits to evaluate provider practices. These time-consuming strategies are restricted in scope and rely closely on provider cooperation – notably within the deepest tiers of the chain, the place firms lack a direct industrial relationship. With out visibility, companies usually battle to assemble the mandatory knowledge which ends up in gaps of their threat evaluation and may make it tough to reply proactively to points as extensive ranging as dangerous chemical contamination in India, mass embezzlement in South Korea and repeated union busting in Peru.
Bendi’s know-how has been developed at an important time for firms globally. Current laws such because the EU’s Company Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) and the US Uyghur Compelled Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) are inserting new calls for on firms to supply detailed proof of their provide chain’s sustainable practices and product provenance. Stricter compliance necessities, elevated penalties, and the danger of reputational harm are forcing companies to reassess how they handle their provide chains.
The corporate was co-founded by CEO Mandeep Soor, a former strategist for the Boston Consulting Group, the British Enterprise Financial institution and knowledge science startup Pivigo; Chief Analysis Officer Benjamin Norsworthy who has over 15 years of expertise in sustainability with organisations resembling Burberry and World Vogue Agenda; and CTO Olivier Bacs, who has led enterprise-grade software program improvement for firms resembling CircleCl and The Economist.
Soor’s ardour for addressing labour expertise comes from her childhood expertise watching her mom work as a casual seamstress for UK excessive road manufacturers, paid by the piece and incomes precarious wages.
She mentioned: “As world provide chains change into extra complicated, the instruments to make sure transparency, resilience and sustainability are not a nice-to-have, they’re changing into a licence to function. Our mission is to empower firms to take accountable actions and strengthen their provide chains with ease and effectivity.”
Norsworthy added: “Having skilled the challenges of managing complicated provide chains within the vogue business firsthand, I noticed the necessity for an answer that might present each deep visibility and actionable insights. Bendi helps firms not solely perceive their provide chains but in addition actively handle dangers associated to them. This funding will permit us to additional improve our platform, broaden our crew and prolong our capabilities throughout extra industries and extra markets.”
Ruper Lyle, Director at Midven, added: “Bendi’s strategy to produce chain transparency and threat administration is important in at this time’s complicated and ever-changing regulatory panorama. With world laws tightening round sustainability and accountable sourcing, Bendi is well-positioned to guide the market. We’re extremely excited to associate with a crew with such big industrial potential that’s concurrently driving such optimistic change throughout so many industries.”
