Pelico Raises $18.5M to Help Manufacturers Manage Factory Operations in an Increasingly Complex & Volatile Context
With this new funding round, Pelico aims to become the Operational Management System of the modern factory
PARIS–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Pelico, the factory operations SaaS platform that empowers manufacturers to deal with rising levels of complexity and volatility in their operations, today announced that it has raised $18M led by 83North and Serena with participation from La Famiglia & ISAI as well as multiple business angels such as Adrien Nussenbaum (Mirakl), Carsten Thoma, Bastian Nominacher (Celonis)… This new fund will give the opportunity to Pelico to grow its team, significantly invest in its technology and expand its internal presence.
Supply chain and manufacturing have become more complex than ever, with volatile demand, fragmented supply chains and an increasing complexity in products. Because operational context changes faster than the teams’ ability to plan, those teams spend their time firefighting these unplanned disruptions. This puts at risk revenue as sales are delayed, and margins as last minute solutions are costly. Pelico acts as an operations management system for factory teams. It empowers factory teams to:
- continuously anticipate bottlenecks such as part shortages,
- act fast with AI-assisted recommendations and simulations,
- quickly resolve issues with team collaboration over a common view of data.
Since its creation in 2019, multiple manufacturing leaders across France, Germany & Switzerland and in various industries (Aerospace & Defense, Luxury…) chose Pelico to tackle their operational challenges. For example, Pelico helped Collins Aerospace reduce logistical cycle times by 50% and Safran reduce parts shortages by 72% in 6 weeks.
The Pelico team is a mix of former operational leaders (Tesla, United Technologies, Mercedes…), experienced software engineers (Palantir, Criteo, Dassault…) and applied math researchers.
“The complexity of operations in discrete manufacturing is constantly increasing as we are switching from a model of mass production to a model based on personalized products, reduced volumes and shorter cycle times. This complexity is also reinforced by recurring supply chain shocks (brexit, covid, ukrainian war…). Our job is to absorb all this complexity in order to help operational teams continuously monitor risks in the production chain and facilitate the decision-making process across the factory” explains Tarik Benabdallah, CEO and Co-founder of Pelico
To continue its growth and become the Operations Management System of the modern factory, Pelico will open 50 new positions in France and in the US within the next 18 months. The company which opened an office in the US in 2022 aims to strengthen its international presence to support its customers with a global footprint. This fundraising will also give the opportunity to Pelico to invest in its technology and product, enabling its intelligent assistant to tackle more use cases for factory teams.
“The Covid crisis has created new challenges and an explosion of last-minute unplanned issues in factory operations and production planning. Pelico has enabled us, thanks to digitalization tools, to optimize and make our industrial risk management processes more robust.” Pauline Casta, SIOP and Material Manager at Collins Aerospace.
“In a ramp-up context with high volatility and complexity in operations, strengthening our operational excellence by leveraging the latest digital technologies is a key strategic priority.
Pelico empowers our teams with a data-rich system that continuously monitors operational bottlenecks, checks the robustness of our plannings and empowers to act fast.
Thanks to Pelico, we reduced by 72% our number of part shortages and improved our data quality while allowing our teams to focus on their real added value.” Matthieu Gaulon, EVP Support & Services at Safran
“The complexity of industrial operations has greatly increased in the pandemic and economic context of the last two years. To enable operational teams to manage their production in an optimal way, Pelico has developed a suite of analysis, collaboration and simulation tools that is unique on the market and can be deployed in only a few weeks. Two years after meeting founders Tarik, Mamoun, and Jonathan at the inception of Pelico, we are very excited to partner with them in this important expansion phase.” Xavier Lorphelin, Managing Partner at Serena
About Pelico
Pelico is a startup based in Paris created late 2019 by engineers coming from both the manufacturing and tech worlds. Pelico’s operations management system connects factory teams to manage daily volatility and deliver products on time, at cost. It empowers factory teams to continuously anticipate bottlenecks, act fast with AI-assisted recommendations, and collaborate across teams on the implementation of corrective actions.
About 83North
83North is a global venture capital firm with over $2.2B under management. The fund invests across all stages, in exceptional entrepreneurs, whose focus is to build global category leading companies.
83North has backed more than 85 companies including AeroScout (acquired by Stanley Black & Decker), Celonis, Hybris (acquired by SAP), iZettle (acquired by PayPal), Just Eat (LSE:JE), Marqeta (NASDAQ: MQ), Mirakl, Payoneer (NASDAQ: PAYO), ScaleIO (acquired by EMC), Vast, Vdoo (acquired by JFROG), Via, Wandera (acquired by Jamf) and Wolt (acquired by DoorDash).
About Serena Capital
Serena invests in bold ventures and provides them with an unrivaled level of expertise and operational resources in Paris and New York.
Serena’s portfolio can leverage an experienced team of Operating Partners and a very active C-Level community, the Serena Squad, open exclusively to present and past companies, each contributing to the other’s success.
Founded in 2008 by entrepreneurs for entrepreneurs, Serena’s core belief is that VCs should work for their organizations, not the other way around.
About La Famiglia
La Famiglia is a European seed and growth stage venture capital fund investing in technology companies that enable or disrupt large industries. We are backed by a selection of world-leading entrepreneurs from various industries that provide precious early market access, impactful partnerships and deep expertise for our portfolio companies.
More than a regular venture fund, La Famiglia serves as a trusted access platform creating unique relationships between the old and the new world, enabling real differentiated leverage on capital.
About ISAI
Nearly 300 successful entrepreneurs, who have invested in ISAI funds, and more than 50 ISAI-backed start-up co-founders share the collective ambition of co-writing great entrepreneurial stories. ISAI invests in differentiated projects run by ambitious teams that it selects rigorously and actively supports. ISAI Gestion, an investment management company approved by the AMF, with over €500 million under management, aims to finance and support high potential Tech companies, at the seed/post-seed stage (venture capital, ticket from € 150k ticket to € 3m with participations in successive rounds) or when they have already reached the break-even stage (Tech Growth/LBO, tickets from €5m to €50m).
About the business angels
- Carsten Thomas – Founder Hybris, ex-SAP Executive
- Adrien Nussenbaum – CEO Mirakl
- Bastian Nominacher – CEO Celonis
- Alex LeQuoc – CTO Datadog
- Florian Douetteau – CEO Dataiku
- Jonathan Benhamou & Clément Buyse – People doc
- Charles Miglietti – CEO Toucan Toco
Contacts
Archetype / July GIL
july.gil@archetype.co