LONDON — TrusTrace, the business-to-business software platform for supply chain traceability, has completed a $24 million growth investment led by Circularity Capital, as well a helping hand from previous investors Industrifonden and Fairpoint Capital.
The funds from the investment will be used to expand TrusTrace’s global presence, homing in on product development and enlisting more collaborations.
The process of completing the investment took four months, starting in late August last year and closing the round at the end of 2023.
“The raise started according to plan, but was finalized faster than anticipated, as we were planning to close it at the end Q1 of 2024. The reason we moved it forward was the interest from investors to close it in 2023,” said Shameek Ghosh, chief executive officer of TrusTrace, in an interview.
Players like Adidas are relying on material compliance software to improve traceability.
“COVID-19 showed the importance of value chains and the risk related to disruptions, which made more investors as well as brands understand the value of traceability. We have been speaking with many of the investors we talked to for this round for a couple of years already, as many of them have shown great interest in the journey and impact we are driving,” he added.
TrusTrace decided to work with Circularity Capital on the investment because of their focus on sustainability and circularity.
“We see a growing number of global fashion brands looking to transition away from today’s linear ‘take-make-dispose’ model of production and consumption to one that is more sustainable and equitable,” said Anders Brejner, investment director at Circularity Capital. “We believe this is only possible at scale with the right digital backbone to provide transparency and traceability across complex global supply chains.”
Adidas, Brooks Running, Tapestry and Asics are among the brands that work with TrusTrace.
Since 2017, when TrusTrace launched, the platform has worked with more than 8,000 fashion suppliers with potential to trace 250,000 products and more than $12 billion worth of goods on the platform.
