EcoVadis, the leading platform for environmental, social and ethical performance ratings for global supply chains, servicing over 30,000 customers in 110 countries, today announced its first institutional funding led by Partech Ventures, the global VC firm operating from San Francisco, Paris and Berlin.
The company, which employs 320 professionals worldwide, has been growing organically by 50 percent annually since its inception ten years ago. Its ratings and scorecards are being used by more than 150 of the world's largest supply chains representing more than $1 trillion in annual procurement spend.
This minority investment is the first outside capital for EcoVadis since its founding in 2007. It will be used to accelerate worldwide adoption of EcoVadis' supplier corporate social responsibility (CSR) ratings, to advance the reliability and value delivered in its ratings, and to further invest in the core technologies of its platform, through in-house R&D and partnerships with best-of-breed tech start-ups.
"As a transatlantic investment fund, Partech is the ideal partner as we scale," said Frédéric Trinel, co-CEO of EcoVadis. "Their team brings global expertise with a strong presence in the U.S., a deep understanding of tech and a passion for driving performance. This pivotal investment will empower our team to accelerate R&D and enhance our proprietary technology with the latest innovations in machine learning and natural language processing while broadening our expertise in CSR analysis to foster environmental, social and ethical performance improvement at a global scale."
"Consumers, citizens and investors are all demanding that companies adopt and demonstrate sustainable practices to improve their environmental and social impact. EcoVadis makes that happen across global supply chains," said Omri Benayoun, general partner of Partech Ventures. "We are extremely proud to partner with Pierre-François and Frédéric. These outstanding entrepreneurs are defining the global standard for supplier sustainability ratings," added Bruno Cremel, general partner of Partech Ventures.
"Companies rely on EcoVadis to ensure resilience of supply chains but also to drive change in sustainability, social and human rights practices," said Pierre-François Thaler, co-CEO of EcoVadis. "We now want to step up the impact of our collaborative platform to drive more improvements in the future."
"Within this decade, business leaders know they must make radical shifts to remain competitive in increasingly socially-sensitive markets -- and to address the formidable challenges facing our planet," said John Elkington, chairman of Volans, the U.K.-based global sustainability consulting firm, and EcoVadis advisory board member. "It's exciting to see the EcoVadis ratings and platform going mainstream – with growing potential to become the preferred enabler of business and market transformation for the two million businesses operating in global supply chains."
About EcoVadis
EcoVadis is the first collaborative platform providing sustainability ratings and performance improvement tools for global supply chains. EcoVadis' easy-to-use CSR scorecards help companies to monitor suppliers' environmental, ethical, and social practices across 150 purchasing categories and 110 countries. Over 150 industry leaders such as Nestlé, GSK, Heineken, Michelin, Johnson & Johnson, Schneider Electric, l'Oréal, BASF, and Subway, and over 30,000 of their trading partners use EcoVadis to reduce risk and drive sustainability and innovation.
www.ecovadis.com On Twitter: @Ecovadis On LinkedIn: Linkedin/EcoVadis
GP Bulhound acted as financial advisor to EcoVadis and its shareholders.
About Partech Ventures
Founded in 1982 in Silicon Valley, Partech Ventures is a global investment firm with a team spread across offices in San Francisco, Paris and Berlin. Most Partners have been entrepreneurs themselves or have held management positions within tech companies. The partnership acts and invests as a single team, helping entrepreneurs build fast-growing tech and digital companies addressing large markets across multiple continents. Partech Ventures partners with entrepreneurs at the seed (Partech Entrepreneur), venture (Partech International) and/or growth (Partech Growth) stages. Companies backed by Partech Ventures have completed 21 initial public offerings and more than 50 major M&A transactions with leading international companies. Since 2012, the team has built a pioneering business development platform fostering synergies and business relationships between entrepreneurs and strategic partners. Preqin, an independent global research firm, has ranked Partech Ventures as one of the ten most consistent venture capital firms in the world, and the only European VC in the top 25.
http://www.partechventures.com
