Volta, an innovative startup with dual headquarters in Milan and Paris, has successfully secured a €6 million pre-seed round ($6.3 million) to develop a SaaS platform tailored for B2B sales. The platform is designed to simplify the traditionally cumbersome process of managing catalogs and transactions for wholesale and distribution companies.
Volta pitches itself as the B2B equivalent of Shopify—a solution that mirrors Shopify’s success in transforming B2C commerce but focuses on addressing the unique challenges faced by B2B businesses. While Shopify has expanded into B2B, Volta’s founders believe there’s an untapped opportunity in providing a platform that is specifically tailored for business-to-business transactions.
Tackling Outdated B2B Processes
Many midsize wholesale and distribution companies in Europe are still bogged down by outdated practices, such as using paper catalogs and manually processing orders. This is a major pain point for companies trying to scale and manage growing customer bases efficiently.
Volta aims to streamline the catalog management process and offer businesses a way to transition away from manual workflows. Companies can easily upload their existing catalogs (in Excel or directly from their ERP systems) into Volta’s platform, check for errors in data formatting, and import everything seamlessly. From there, employees can create dynamic, shareable catalogs tailored to different clients and scenarios, track ongoing negotiations, and make real-time updates to orders.
The idea is not to replace a company’s existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Instead, Volta functions as an extension that helps businesses manage the earlier stages of a transaction before it enters the ERP system for final processing. Pricing and inventory data are automatically synced with the ERP to ensure consistency across the business.
Simplifying Customer Management
In addition to catalog management, Volta also offers tools to manage customer relationships. The platform allows businesses to create detailed customer profiles, segment clients into categories, and track interactions. While Volta’s CRM features may not be as comprehensive as platforms like Salesforce, co-founder and co-CEO Paul Guillemin notes that they are more than sufficient for most midsize companies.
“We’re not trying to compete with Salesforce. What we offer is a simpler solution for businesses that don’t need all the bells and whistles but still want a more efficient way to manage their customer relationships and sales processes,” Guillemin explained.
Future Growth and Product Expansion
Looking ahead, Volta plans to expand its platform with additional features. These could include logistics integrations, enabling businesses to manage shipments directly through the platform, as well as financing options to help companies facilitate transactions with clients. The goal is to create a comprehensive solution that encourages companies to adopt more of Volta’s features over time.
Record-Breaking Pre-Seed Round
This €6 million pre-seed funding round marks the largest pre-seed investment in an Italian startup to date. The impressive fundraising success can be partly attributed to the experienced founding team behind Volta. Co-founder Paul Guillemin previously founded Fretlink, a road freight transport startup that raised significant funds but faced challenges scaling. After stepping down from Fretlink in 2021, Guillemin teamed up with Mario Parteli, who co-founded Abiby, a subscription box service for beauty products. Parteli has a wealth of experience in tech and business, having worked at companies like Facile.it and Rocket Internet.
The pre-seed round is led by Emblem, a relatively new European VC firm, with participation from other investors such as Robin Capital, Founders Future, and notable angel investors, including those affiliated with Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, and the Berlusconi and Agnelli family investment firms.
With this substantial early backing, Volta is poised to take on the B2B market, offering an innovative platform that could significantly reduce friction in the B2B sales and catalog management process.
Volta pitches itself as the B2B equivalent of Shopify—a solution that mirrors Shopify’s success in transforming B2C commerce but focuses on addressing the unique challenges faced by B2B businesses. While Shopify has expanded into B2B, Volta’s founders believe there’s an untapped opportunity in providing a platform that is specifically tailored for business-to-business transactions.
Tackling Outdated B2B Processes
Many midsize wholesale and distribution companies in Europe are still bogged down by outdated practices, such as using paper catalogs and manually processing orders. This is a major pain point for companies trying to scale and manage growing customer bases efficiently.
Volta aims to streamline the catalog management process and offer businesses a way to transition away from manual workflows. Companies can easily upload their existing catalogs (in Excel or directly from their ERP systems) into Volta’s platform, check for errors in data formatting, and import everything seamlessly. From there, employees can create dynamic, shareable catalogs tailored to different clients and scenarios, track ongoing negotiations, and make real-time updates to orders.
The idea is not to replace a company’s existing enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. Instead, Volta functions as an extension that helps businesses manage the earlier stages of a transaction before it enters the ERP system for final processing. Pricing and inventory data are automatically synced with the ERP to ensure consistency across the business.
Simplifying Customer Management
In addition to catalog management, Volta also offers tools to manage customer relationships. The platform allows businesses to create detailed customer profiles, segment clients into categories, and track interactions. While Volta’s CRM features may not be as comprehensive as platforms like Salesforce, co-founder and co-CEO Paul Guillemin notes that they are more than sufficient for most midsize companies.
“We’re not trying to compete with Salesforce. What we offer is a simpler solution for businesses that don’t need all the bells and whistles but still want a more efficient way to manage their customer relationships and sales processes,” Guillemin explained.
Future Growth and Product Expansion
Looking ahead, Volta plans to expand its platform with additional features. These could include logistics integrations, enabling businesses to manage shipments directly through the platform, as well as financing options to help companies facilitate transactions with clients. The goal is to create a comprehensive solution that encourages companies to adopt more of Volta’s features over time.
Record-Breaking Pre-Seed Round
This €6 million pre-seed funding round marks the largest pre-seed investment in an Italian startup to date. The impressive fundraising success can be partly attributed to the experienced founding team behind Volta. Co-founder Paul Guillemin previously founded Fretlink, a road freight transport startup that raised significant funds but faced challenges scaling. After stepping down from Fretlink in 2021, Guillemin teamed up with Mario Parteli, who co-founded Abiby, a subscription box service for beauty products. Parteli has a wealth of experience in tech and business, having worked at companies like Facile.it and Rocket Internet.
The pre-seed round is led by Emblem, a relatively new European VC firm, with participation from other investors such as Robin Capital, Founders Future, and notable angel investors, including those affiliated with Sequoia, Andreessen Horowitz, and the Berlusconi and Agnelli family investment firms.
With this substantial early backing, Volta is poised to take on the B2B market, offering an innovative platform that could significantly reduce friction in the B2B sales and catalog management process.