Cavalry x Lhotse
Lhotse, the Berlin-based Procure Tech company that enables automated tactical procurement for medium- and large-sized companies, raised €5 million in seed funding. We at Cavalry are very happy to lead the round — with participation from existing investor Paua Ventures, who led the pre-seed round just 6 months ago. In addition, a number of top-notch entrepreneurs are also participating, including Patrick Andrä (Founder HomeToGo), Felix Jahn (Founder home24, Founder McMakler), Philipp Klöckner (Doppelgänger Podcast, KKR Advisor), Christopher Oster (Founder Clark) and Katharina Gehra (Founder Blockchain Fund Immutable Insights).
The B2B venture founded in 2020 by Henning Hatje, Jan Berssenbruegge and Can Akin drives measurable savings by reducing spend and increasing process efficiency within tactical procurement. Thanks to automation and the use of AI, the solution consolidates all important information in one place. Using Lhotse, the buyer can access an automated compilation of all suppliers and previous orders, have alternative suppliers suggested from the proprietary Lhotse supplier database and automatically receive competitive offers.
Inefficiencies due to fragmented procurement
Tactical procurement includes expenditure in areas such as IT, marketing, sales and facility management. In many companies, tactical procurement accounts for about 20% of total expenditure, but the associated effort can be a multiple of this. In addition, there is great efficiency potential in simplifying cooperation with internal stakeholders and external suppliers. According to study results from the management consultancy BCG, digitalisation in purchasing can save 5% to 10% of spend and increase process efficiency by 30% to 50%.
Only one year after launch, Lhotse’s customer base includes large and medium-sized companies such as FUNKE Mediengruppe and KWS SAAT as well as scale-ups like the Berlin-based Unicorn Gorillas.
Lhotse’s founding team brings a tremendously important wealth of experience from previous project work with large enterprises at BCG. They have experienced the immense untapped potential in procurement processes and developed an excellent product, which also shines with excellent UI and UX. We rarely see this in B2B products of this nature. Just one year after their founding, they are already supporting numerous major customers, from start-ups to medium-sized businesses. With this, the Lhotse team proves that they are ideally equipped to take over the leading role as procurement SaaS and absolutely have their finger on the pulse.
Congratulations to Henning Hatje, Jan Berssenbruegge and Can Akin on this tremendous funding round! And many thanks to the terrific team at Paua Ventures for the great collaboration! We look forward to conquering the highest peaks together with all of you!
Cavalry’s Rouven Dresselhaus sat down with Lhotse’s Henning Hatje to talk about the current challenges in procurement, the idea behind Lhotse and the upcoming milestones.
