EmergeVest has completed the first stage of a £5 Million funding round in Atheon's advanced visual supply chain analytics SaaS platform.
23rd August 2018 - Atheon will use the additional capital to accelerate its rapid growth plans, applying leading edge technology to its SaaS portfolio for the UK grocery supply chain.
Atheon's existing investors, Chief Executive and Founder, Guy Cuthbert and Commercial Director, Ian Hall, will continue to serve in their respective roles as Atheon's senior management. They are joined by Craig Sears-Black, a software industry leader, who has been appointed as non-executive Chairman.
Whilst best known for its investments in international supply chain and logistics, EmergeVest is highly focused on software and technology services, particularly investment opportunities at the intersection of technology and business services. Previously, EmergeVest participated in the creation of Adjuno, a leading UK retail supply chain software business, as well as Groove Technology, a Vietnam-based provider of outsourced software development services.
Atheon blends world-class visual analytics expertise with advanced algorithms to create automated analysis tools which combine the very best of human and artificial intelligence. Since 2014 Atheon has applied this approach to the grocery retail supply chain, creating a daily, item-level model of the Flow-of-Goods and engaging consumer goods suppliers through its SKUtrak® SaaS suite.
SKUtrak provides over 500 suppliers to the 'Big Four' supermarkets with the tools to investigate, understand and action ripples in the Flow-of-Goods to improve availability, reduce waste and serve shoppers and consumers with the best possible products and service.
Commenting on the investment, Guy Cuthbert, Chief Executive Officer, Atheon Analytics, said: "We are delighted to accept this investment from EmergeVest, both as recognition of the business we have built to date working with the 'Big Four' grocers, and as an endorsement for the next stage of our growth plan to address the broader grocery retail market. We are passionate about our mission to humanise data, with SKUtrak a broad-scale demonstration of this for grocery retail Flow-of-Goods. Backing from EmergeVest enables us to extend the reach of SKUtrak to 3,000 suppliers of the 'GCSCOP Ten' - the top ten UK grocers – and drive greater value and efficiency from this complex supply chain."
Atheon's non-executive Chairman, Craig Sears-Black added: "UK Grocery retail is impacted by around £9 Billion of lost-sales each year. Supply chain data is often overlooked, but giving suppliers better visibility of this data is a simple and effective solution. Atheon's strength and therefore its growth potential lies in its capability to combine supply chain data with sales data and make this visually very easy to interpret to optimise the Flow-of-Goods and improve the retailer-supplier relationship."
Heath Zarin, CEO and Managing Director of EmergeVest concluded: "We are delighted to invest in Atheon Analytics, providing Guy, Ian and the team with capital and support to drive their next growth phase. In particular, we're excited by the potential for Atheon's advanced data analytics to deliver actionable insight to an ever-expanding portfolio of customers and across the EmergeVest family of businesses."
