Alkemics, a collaborative platform for retailers, has closed a Series B financing round of USD22 million led by Cathay Innovation and Serena Capital.
Index Ventures, Partech Ventures and SEB Alliance also participated in the financing following a Series A round of USD5.6 million in early 2015.
The latest round is one of the 10 largest in 2016 for the French technology sector. It will allow Alkemics to accelerate deployment of its platform internationally and strengthen its sales, marketing and technology resources as it continues to support customers in their digital transformation efforts.
Since its last fundraising round, the number of consumer packaged goods manufacturers connecting to retailers across Alkemics has more than tripled. The community includes over 2,500 brands, including global firms such as Unilever and Mars, with leading retailers such as Walmart.
Alkemics is also certified on the GDSN 3.1 industry standard from GS1, which allows brands to publish digital product data worldwide, and has been recognised by Gartner as a 2016 Cool Vendor for Information Innovation and Governance.
“From the beginning, Alkemics shared a clear understanding of our common goal – leveraging digital technology to deliver a rich, consistent shopping experience for our consumers,” says Romain David, e-commerce leader at Unilever France. “Their agile approach to innovation and data management has served as a catalyst for stronger collaboration between our own teams and with our retail partners.”
Alkemics believes that digital collaboration is at the heart of retail. With more products sold through more channels and more product information required to meet shopper demand, brands and retailers need to work together around data that is accurate, structured and synchronised.
Its SaaS platform simplifies how brands and retailers collect, manage, and share product data, streamlining collaboration among internal teams and with trading partners.
"By working together, our customers increase speed to market for their products and deliver an improved shopper experience through richer, more consistent information," says Antoine Durieux , founder and CEO of Alkemics.
Jacky Abitbol, partner at Cathay Innovation, and Ming-Po Cai, president of Cathay Capital Private Equity, say: "In many industries, digital is a proven catalyst for growth and has become its own commercial channel. We’re convinced by the quality of the Alkemics team and its ability to quickly scale a collaborative digital platform between brands and retailers through a network effect that creates new marketing opportunities at local, national and international levels.”


"The Alkemics platform allows brands and retailers to have a single provider for data sharing products locally and globally. Being one of the few players to achieve GS1 global industry certification, Alkemics provides its customers productivity gains and improved operational efficiency, as a valued partner in their continued international growth,” says Xavier Lorphelin, managing partner of Serena Capital.
