USA – Knowde, a first-of-its-kind online ingredients marketplace, has raised US$14 million in a Series A financing round led by Sequoia Capital to modernize the global ingredients marketplace.
The Series A financing also saw participation from Refactor Capital, Bee Partners, Cantos Ventures and Knollwood Investment Advisory and comes on the heels of Knowde partnering with DuPont, DSM, Braskem, among other major suppliers.
Knowde is an online marketplace connecting more than 700 major producers with customers around the globe and allows buyers to search, filter, sample, quote, and purchase from major producers.
Just as marketplaces have modernized many major industries before, Knowde believes that it is now bringing this same experience to ingredients as well as the larger chemicals industry.
Knowde observes that for more than a century, the world’s ingredient and chemical producers have relied on outside sales teams, brochures, catalogs and other traditional sales and marketing tactics with great success, representing US$5 trillion in annual sales and impacting more than 25 percent of global GDP.
More recently though, increased globalization, buyer preferences for a more digital and automated experience, and a changing supplier landscape have put pressure on producers to modernize their business practices and make marketing their products more efficient.
To make this a reality, Knowde offers a two-sided digital marketplace that is helping producers digitally transform their businesses.
By joining the Knowde marketplace, the company says that hundreds of producers have already streamlined their businesses, acquired new customers and tapped new revenue streams.
“We’re proud to partner with Knowde because Ali and his team have a vision to digitally transform the chemical industry and bring one of the largest industries online,” commented Shaun Maguire, partner at Sequoia.
“Many producers have been slow to build or adopt digital experiences for their customers, leaving them unable to fulfill the needs of a large segment of target buyers that are more comfortable with digital commerce.
“We believe Knowde is leading the industry into the future and has a huge opportunity to reshape how buyers and producers find one another.”
Ali Amin-Javaheri, founder and CEO of Knowde said that with the support of the investment partners, the company will be able to scale its concept to help every producer and buyer enjoy a consumer-grade digital experience.
