Volta, a startup with teams split between two headquarters in Milan and Paris, raised a pre-seed round of €6 million ($6.3 million) to develop a new vertical software-as-a-service platform focused on B2B sales. ) has been secured.
From a more practical perspective, the Volta team promotes their product as the equivalent of Shopify, but with a focus on B2B transactions. Shopify, the e-commerce giant that helps people create online stores and easily sell products to consumers, offers a B2B commerce platform, but Volta believes it's worth starting a company focused on B2B transactions. That's what I think.
According to Volta, most mid-sized wholesale and distribution companies across Europe still use paper catalogs and rely on manual order processing.
These companies tend to go back and forth between multiple versions of their paper catalogs when they go to trade shows or meet potential customers in their offices. Depending on your client and situation, you may not want to display listings with the same items and prices.
That's why Volta wants to simplify the catalog management process. But the company doesn't want to replace its good old enterprise resource planning system. Once the purchase order is signed, the transaction is processed through the ERP.
However, everything that happens before the transaction may be handled by Volta. Businesses can upload existing catalogs from Excel files or ERP systems. Once you've verified that your column classifications are correct, you can import everything into Volta.
Employees can then create catalogs, share them with potential customers, track current negotiations, and update orders on the fly from Volta's interface. Pricing and inventory data will remain synchronized with your ERP.
“The B2C sector is rapidly evolving, with digital platforms replacing paper catalogs and offering integrated e-commerce solutions. Meanwhile, B2B operations are nearly 15 years behind and are still mired in outdated manual processes. We are at an impasse,” co-founder and co-CEO Paul Guilmin said in a statement.
Volta also allows you to manage your customers directly from the platform's interface. Users can create company profiles, create categories, and group clients into different categories. “This only covers 20% of what you can do with Salesforce, but it's still enough for most companies,” Guillemin told TechCrunch.
In the future, I can imagine even more products and features that could be useful to these mid-sized wholesalers and distribution companies. Volta may add logistics integration and financing options. The idea is that once a company starts using Volta, they see value in managing their catalog on a SaaS platform and start using Volta to get more features.
This pre-seed round is the largest pre-seed round for an Italian startup. And one of the reasons the startup was able to secure €6 million from the start is thanks to its founding team.
Guilmin, the company's co-founder and co-CEO, previously founded road freight startup Fretlink, which raised tens of millions of euros but did not reach the scale expected. It didn't happen. Following bankruptcy proceedings, the company had to go through court-ordered liquidation.
Another co-founder and co-CEO, Mario Partelli, previously founded Abiby, a subscription box company for cosmetics and beauty items. He has worked in the technology industry for 15 years, including Facile.it and Rocket Internet. The duo aims to achieve their first major breakthrough with Volta.
Emblem, a relatively new European venture capital firm, has led pre-seed rounds along with other funds, and through its scouting program has attracted dozens of investors including Berlusconi family investment firm Robin Capital, Founders Future, Sequoia and a16z. Angel investors are also participating. family, the Agnelli family, etc.