On EQT Ventures’ investment in Packmatic: Reshaping Europe’s Packaging Landscape
Let’s face it, the global packaging market, valued at an astounding €1 trillion, is rarely considered the epicenter of thriving tech innovation. Those operating within it face a myriad of challenges: high fragmentation on the supply side and a lack of digitalization have created a landscape that’s hard to navigate for both customers and suppliers. The implicit cost and inefficiency of an often manual, regional, and outdated sourcing process is hitting smaller companies the hardest, and is stifling SMEs’ growth.
Enter Packmatic, a Berlin-based digital packaging marketplace that’s not afraid to challenge the status quo. Packmatic has built a fully digital one-stop shop, connecting businesses to a vast network of over 300 packaging suppliers across Europe in just a few clicks, and opening the door to a vast range of lower plastic and lower carbon alternatives at the right price. The market fundamentals really could not be better right now — Packmatic is disrupting the value chain with a strong lock-in at a time when customers are increasingly sensitive to both price and sustainability.
Today, we’re thrilled to announce our investment in Packmatic after leading their €15 million Series A round — a major milestone for the company that will supercharge their growth as they scale across Europe.
Our excitement began with Packmatic’s founding team, Matthias, Jonas, and Paul, whose collective vision matches our own of creating category leaders with a first mover advantage and a challenger mindset. I could tell immediately that we had a similar way of working (as well as a shared affinity for coke zero, running and Ladurée macarons!) and would get along like a house on fire. This is a team who live and breathe their mission; just check out Jonas dressing up as a packaging box at carnival for proof.
Their pragmatic attitude to fixing the problems they saw in the industry also stood out — starting with radically improving price transparency, and building on that with a practical interface for customers to place orders. Carbon footprint measuring is then layered over the top to increase market stickiness as sustainability continues to top the global agenda.
As digitalization emerges as a key enabler for the packaging industry’s growth and productivity ambitions, we at EQT are proud to support a company at the forefront of this shift. This investment also advances our commitment to finding and backing what we call generation defining companies. Packmatic is a prime example of this vision.
Matthias, Jonas, and Paul have identified an underserved area of the packaging industry and developed a solution that its customers say truly understands them. Add to this Packmatic’s sustainability offering, wherein it matches customers to flexible paper and sugar cane-based plastic alternatives, to name just a few, and you have a company that is fixing structural issues in the industry while paving the way for a sustainable future.
Stay tuned for more updates as Packmatic continues its journey to reshape the packaging ecosystem.
