o9 Solutions, is a leading enterprise AI software platform provider for transforming planning and decision-making speed and quality in companies across industry verticals.
They announced that it has received equity investments totaling $295 million from General Atlantic, including BeyondNetZero, its climate investing venture, Generation Investment Management, a pure-play sustainability investment manager, and existing investor KKR.
This will help o9 build on its momentum and accelerate growth for its AI-powered Integrated Business Planning platform, Digital Brain, across industry verticals and markets.
It will also help o9 drive continued innovation in Research & Development, industry knowledge models and partner ecosystem development that will help companies in order to implement o9’s game-changing platform faster and realize greater value.
o9’s varied reach
Today, leading companies across varied industry verticals that include retail, consumer and industrial products manufacturing, high-tech and semiconductor, life sciences, automotive, telecom, and oil and gas leverage o9’s Digital Brain platform for transforming their supply chain, commercial and integrated business planning capabilities.
These companies are using o9’s Digital Brain platform to build a live, digital model of enterprise data and knowledge that helps them detect demand and supply risks and opportunities, forecast demand more accurately, and evaluate what-if scenarios all in real time.
By matching demand and supply intelligently and driving greater alignment and collaboration between customers, internal stakeholders and suppliers across the integrated supply chain, clients can realize significant value from their commercial plans and decisions while making measurable positive impact to the environment.
“We have an unprecedented opportunity in front of us,” said Chakri Gottemukkala, the Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of o9 Solutions.
“Demand and supply volatility and complexity has been growing and the pandemic accelerated the challenges companies face in meeting customer service and financial goals.”
“At the same time, there is significant pressure on boards and executives from customers and employees to also drive meaningful improvements in sustainability goals.”
“o9 is poised to help companies deal with these trends in a differentiated, proven platform.”
“Executives see that transforming planning and decision-making capabilities need to be more agile, and integration is the most mission critical, high-value initiative going forward.”
“As supply chains are the majority source of environmental impact, we believe transforming planning is key not just for improving P&Ls, but also the health of the planet.”
“The new investments and strategic partnerships with General Atlantic, BeyondNetZero and Generation Investment Management, along with KKR, will help us accelerate this mission of making the o9 Digital Brain the most value-creating enterprise platform.”
Restructuring at o9 following the funding
General Atlantic, its BeyondNetZero venture and Generation Investment Management join KKR as investors in o9, valuing the company at $2.7 billion.
This marks an increase from the $1bn valuation in April 2020 at the time of the company’s first-ever external investment led by KKR, which is participating in this funding round.
This capital raise follows a record year during which the company reported a greater than threefold increase year-over-year in annual recurring revenue (ARR) from new customers.
“Not only is an agile, intelligent and resilient supply chain a vital growth accelerator, it also inherently leads to a reduced carbon footprint, especially for organizations that operate on a global scale,” said Sanjiv Sidhu, Chairman and Co-Founder, o9.
“A sustainable supply chain requires transformation of planning and decision making.”
“o9’s Digital Brain platform makes us the partner of choice for companies across the world and we are pleased and honored that General Atlantic, BeyondNetZero and Generation Investment Management recognize this at such a pivotal phase of our growth trajectory.”
“We believe that o9 is uniquely positioned at the intersection of technology, supply chain, and sustainability,” said Tanzeen Syed, Managing Director, General Atlantic.”
“The business fits within our theses at General Atlantic and BeyondNetZero to support companies that are leveraging innovation to tackle some of the most pressing issues.”
“o9 transforms costly, complex and resource-intensive supply chains into profitable and environmentally sound models, thus enabling them to work toward net zero targets.”
o9 to further ambitions
Joy Tuffield, a Partner in the Growth Equity strategy at Generation Investment Management said, “Generation’s brand is predicated on the belief that long-term commercial opportunity is synonymous with sustainable outcomes.”
“We believe the best businesses stand for something significant. Sustainability and supply chain issues have never been more important. At o9 we believe that we can help global enterprises leverage the power of digital technologies to deliver on both imperatives.”
“We are excited by the commitment of o9 to be an enduring company with a positive influence on the world, in both what the company does and how it operates.”
o9 offers AI-powered Planning, Analytics & Data platform, the Digital Brain, that helps companies to transform slow and siloed planning into smart, integrated and intelligent planning and decision making across core supply chain, commercial and P&L functions.
