Danish AI startup Responsibly raises $2.4m to democratise access to sustainable procurement
Responsibly, an AI-driven platform that helps companies automatically evaluate, report and take action on how sustainable their suppliers are, has raised $2.4m in a seed funding round led by venture capital firms Hambro Perks and Pi Labs.
The Copenhagen-based platform combines AI technology with detailed expert data to provide a comprehensive analysis of any supplier’s sustainability actions, enabling companies to automate engagement and put suppliers on an improvement roadmap.
Responsibly was founded in 2021 by serial impact and tech entrepreneur Thomas Buch Andersson, a former consultant at The Boston Consulting Group and founder of Ofload, a green startup focused on reducing the carbon footprint of the trucking industry which has received more than $80m in funding to date, and closed a $60m Series B round last year.
Responsibly counts the internationally renowned research facility CERN as one of its clients alongside Chr. Hansen, the world’s largest food cultures and dairy enzymes producer. Its proprietary AI software shines a light on carbon emissions, gender pay gap, human rights and deforestation, for example, across the supply chain for retailers, real estate, manufacturers and other sectors by collecting and scoring supplier sustainability data.
Responsibly uses practical AI to find and understand the incredibly large landscape of sustainability data. This helps purchasers accelerate impact with instant access to supplier sustainability and risk data, while suppliers spend less resources on complying with data requests and instead are guided on how to improve.
Responsibly’s founder and CEO, Thomas Buch Andersson, said: “Our mission is to make every b2b purchase in the world truly sustainable and ethically responsible by leveraging cutting-edge AI-driven technology.
“As more buyers push suppliers for sustainability data to achieve scope 3 targets or regulatory compliance, we want companies to spend less time manually collecting sustainability data – which is completely unscalable – so they can focus on actually making an impact where it matters the most by building a more sustainable supply chain which complies with increasing regulation.
“The funding from Hambro Perks and Pi Labs will allow us to further invest in our proprietary AI engine, so we can expand our functionality to capture more data types, democratising access to sustainable procurement.”
Laura Noorani, investment manager at Hambro Perks, said: “We know that supply chains generate the bulk of most companies’ sustainability risks and opportunities. But understanding and influencing the myriad of issues across the supply chain is a notoriously challenging task, given the far reaching and interdisciplinary nature of the problem.
“Responsibly’s automated approach, which leverages a wealth of existing data and certifications from Sedex to B Corp certifications to ISO, strikes us as the most efficient, realistic way to address an enormous challenge at scale. We are excited to see Responsibly become the one-click, single source of truth for information on a company’s ESG credentials.”
Faisal Butt, founder and managing partner of Pi Labs, said: “Real estate has one of the most complex supply chains of any sector, and we’ve heard from large real estate developers that sourcing credible sustainable supplier data has been a challenging, opaque and laborious process to date with no clear solution.
“Responsibly is solving a real world problem that can be applied at scale to almost any sector, particularly real estate, and leverages innovative technology to equip businesses with the sustainability data they need to make informed supply chain decisions. Suppliers not complying with regulations run the risk of materially impacting corporate sustainability goals – and Responsibly eloquently mitigates this challenge. We’re truly excited about the growth potential of Responsibly, which follows on from a number of our recent ESG-focused investments that are laser-focused on addressing the pressing societal issues we are all facing.”
