AI-Driven Value Chain Platform Altana Reaches Unicorn Status

Founded in 2019 by industry pioneers Evan Smith, Peter Swartz and Raphael Tehranian with a view to addressing a lack of visibility across siloed supply networks, Altana and its people have been hard at work creating an accurate, unified digital representation of global value chains. 

Over the past five years, the business has connected and organised the world’s most comprehensive body of supply chain data ever assembled – informed by many of the world’s largest public and private companies – to create a shared source of truth on the global supply chain network. 

Now, the firm behind the ‘world’s first’ Value Chain Management System looks well positioned to continue growing after securing a US$200m Series C investment led by Thomas Tull’s US Innovative Technology Fund (USIT). 

The funding round included participation from March Capital, Generation Investment Management, Salesforce Ventures, Friends and Family Capital and each of Altana’s key existing investors, including GV (Google Ventures), Activate Capital, Floating Point and OMERS Ventures. 

With the cash injection, Altana has been catapulted to unicorn status with a valuation of US$1bn. 

Altana creates shared source of truth

Governments across the globe have, in recent years, introduced countless trade restrictions, as well as economic security, procurement, climate and national security policies, in a bid to govern global value chains – reversing decades of trade liberalisation. 

It means businesses must know their global value chains inside out and manage them from top to bottom, from the sourcing and processing of raw materials, to intermediate production and final assembly, right the way through to sale and end use. 

Until Altana came along, these organisations have struggled to understand, connect or manage across these extended networks beyond direct buyer-supplier relationships.

“Great power competition, climate change and the breakdown of globalisation are generational challenges that require a new model for managing global business, including a more assertive role for government,” explains Evan Smith, Co-Founder and CEO at Altana.

“The era of unbridled outsourcing is over. Our platform is uniquely suited to facilitate a new paradigm – organised around trusted global value chains.”

On the closure of the latest funding round, he adds: “This investor group is uniquely suited to accelerate our go-to-market efforts with both governments and enterprises globally. We couldn’t have better partners joining this mission.”

Unlocking solutions for global players

Altana has set about tackling some of the world’s thorniest problems – from building economic security, to mitigating carbon emissions, to protecting critical industries and infrastructure. 

By bringing applied AI to the infrastructure of global commerce, its Value Chain Management System unlocks solutions that firms have been trying so desperately to achieve.

These include:

• The ‘first-ever’ system to provide accurate Scope 3 carbon measurement
• The ability to root out forced labour from customers’ supply chains
• The ability to intelligently coordinate supply and demand across multiple tiers of the supply chain to reduce costs and working capital
• The ability to price and insure against the risks of supply chain business interruptions
• The ability to defend critical supply chains from geopolitical adversaries

Several major public and private sector organisations, including Maersk, Boston Scientific, ZF, the Lloyd’s Insurance Market, US Customs & Border Protection (US CBP) and multiple UK government agencies – through the UK Global Supply Chain Intelligence Programme – are already using Altana to manage their multi-tier, global value chains.

The Series C investment is set to fuel an ambitious phase of product development to power AI-driven, collaborative workflows on top of Altana’s data platform, enabling the public and private sectors to collaboratively manage security, procurement, compliance, global trade, sustainability and more across multi-tier value chains.

“In this new era of globalisation, it’s crucial for all public and private organisations to shore up their supply chains and for the whole ecosystem to maintain a streamlined, unified information flow,” adds Peter Tague, Managing Partner at USIT.

“Altana’s supply chain intelligence software provides this collective information, empowering companies and governments to understand the vulnerabilities and opportunities within their supply chains, while still maintaining strict customer data privacy. 

“We look forward to supporting Altana’s team as they grow these critical tools that will make global business more resilient, secure and sustainable.”

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