Volta, a new startup with a team split between two headquarters in Milan and Paris, has secured a €6 million pre-seed round ($6.3 million) to develop a new vertical software-as-a-service platform focused on B2B sales.
In more practical terms, the Volta team pitches its product as an equivalent to Shopify but focused on B2B transactions. While Shopify, the ecommerce giant that helps people create an online store and easily sell items to consumers, offers a B2B commerce platform, Volta thinks there’s value in creating a company specifically focused on the B2B transactions.
According to Volta, most midsize wholesale and distribution companies around Europe still use paper catalogs and rely on manual order processing.
When they go to trade shows and meet potential clients in their offices, these companies tend to juggle between several versions of their paper catalogs. Depending on the client and the context, they don’t want to show the same list of items and prices.
That’s why Volta wants to simplify the catalog management process. However, the company doesn’t want to replace the good old enterprise resource planning system. When a purchase order is signed, the transaction is then processed through the ERP.
But everything that happens before the transaction will potentially be handled by Volta. Companies can upload their existing catalog from Excel files or their ERP system. They can check that the column taxonomy is correct and then import everything to Volta.
After that, employees can create catalogs from Volta’s interface, share them with potential customers, track current negotiations, and update orders on the fly. Pricing and inventory data remains in sync with the ERP.
“The B2C sector has evolved rapidly, with digital platforms replacing paper catalogs and delivering integrated e-commerce solutions. Meanwhile, B2B operations have lagged nearly 15 years behind, still bogged down by outdated, manual processes,” co-founder and co-CEO Paul Guillemin said in a statement.
Volta also lets you manage customers directly from the platform’s interface. Users can create company profiles, create categories, and group clients in different categories. “That only covers 20% of what you can do with Salesforce, but it’s still good enough for most companies,” Guillemin told TechCrunch.
In the future, you can imagine more products and features that could be helpful to these midsize wholesale and distribution companies. Volta could add logistics integrations and even financing options. The idea is that once companies start using Volta, they see the value in managing catalogs in a SaaS platform and start using Volta for more features.
This pre-seed round represents the biggest pre-seed round for an Italian startup. And part of the reason why the startup managed to secure €6 million right out of the gate is because of the founding team.
Guillemin, the company’s co-founder and co-CEO, previously founded Fretlink, a road freight transport startup that raised tens of millions of euros but didn’t scale as expected. The company had to go through court-order liquidation after a bankruptcy process.
Mario Parteli, the other co-founder and co-CEO, previously founded Abiby, a subscription box company for cosmetics and beauty items. He’s spent 15 years working in the tech industry at Facile.it, Rocket Internet, and more. The duo aims to achieve their first major breakthrough with Volta.
Emblem, a relatively new European VC firm, is leading the pre-seed round with other funds and dozens of angel investors also participating, such as Robin Capital, Founders Future, Sequoia, and a16z through their scout programs, the investment firms of the Berlusconi family or the Agnelli family, and others.