Munich’s sento.io extends pre-seed funding round to €2 million

Facilitating the automated, digital exchange of B2B documents such as purchase orders, delivery notes, and invoices, Munich’s sento.io has extended its pre-seed funding round, now topping out at €2 million. The company plans to use the capital to continue the development of its product lineup, investigate use cases in verticals beyond its current food retailer and supplier focus, and augment the staff numbers.

It’s no secret that the B2B business of keeping supplies on the shelves has been, shall we say, less than speedy in its adoption of digital technologies. Relying on, “but this is the way it’s always been done,” methods that include, least of which, a fax machine to keep things rolling, if the pandemic has shown us nothing else, it’s time for the business of B2B data exchange to get down to business, and up to date.

"Many people are surprised when we describe to what extent global supply chains are still dependent on fax, email, or outdated system integration technologies. Our vision is to create a global infrastructure to lead B2B data exchange into the 21st century - 100% cloud and API-based," comments sento.io’s co-founder and CEO Felix Krauth.

Without requiring a serious retooling of existing ERP operations, sento.io functions as a layer atop this process, and reduces a tremendous amount of manual work and human errors when transferring documents, while at the same time providing real-time data on stock numbers and order delivery status.

For now, the startup is primarily focused on the food retailer and supplier industry, having established partnerships with major German outlets including Rewe, Edeka, dm, Rossmann, and Markant, and counts vly, KoRo, and Oatsome amongst its customer base.

Sento.io’s pre-seed funding is led by Picus Capital, with extension capital arriving from angel investors including Tom Stafford (MD of DST Global, private investment), and undisclosed founders from Celonis, Checkout.com (via Zinal Growth), Zalando, Flatiron Health, Forto, and GoCardless.

"From day 1, we were very impressed by the great vision and clarity of the team’s product strategy. Within a very short time, Felix, Lucian, and Nimar created a plug and play platform that can already connect a large part of the German food industry via an API," concluded Picus Capital’s Oliver Heinrich.