RELEX Solutions raises €500 million at €5 billion valuation
RELEX Solutions has announced a €500 million funding round led by funds managed by Blackstone Growth (BXG), Blackstone’s growth equity investing business.
This puts its valuation at €5 billion
The company, which previously raised over €200 million, is set to hire hundreds of developers and experts to grow its technical team that currently stands at over 400 people.
Headquartered in Helsinki, Finland, RELEX Solutions employs over 1,300 people globally and has offices in the US, UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal, France, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, Poland, Singapore, Australia, and Hong Kong.
Clients include Dollar Tree, M&S Food, Franprix, Morrisons, PetSmart, Sephora, and Rossmann.
The AI driven, cloud-based RELEX Living Retail Platform helps retailers and brands reduce waste, costs, and manual work by automating and optimising their demand planning, merchandising, supply chain, and workforce planning, and find new ways to meet consumer needs while improving operational efficiency and controlling costs.
“Retail and supply chain planning used to be dominated by incumbents and their legacy technologies, but our growth into a market leader shows that the industry is ready for a change,” says Mikko Kärkkäinen, Group CEO and Co-founder, RELEX Solutions.
“We are proud to welcome Blackstone, with their unparalleled experience in the field, on our journey as we redouble our commitment to both technological innovation and our vision for truly unified planning.”
Kärkkäinen adds:“Consumers are changing their behaviour and preferences at an unprecedented pace.”
“With the power of smart automation and algorithms, we want to help our customers adapt their offering to their customers’ changing needs – what we call living retail.”
“Our customers value technology that enables them to respond quickly to external disruptions and drive rapid innovations in sales and fulfilment channels, product offering, and store formats without missing a beat in their supply chain, merchandising, and operational planning.”
“Blackstone has spent significant time in the retail and supply chain planning market and have closely followed RELEX’s growth into a market leading position,” says Paul Morrissey, who leads European investing for Blackstone Growth.
“The measurable ROI that it can deliver to their customers in short periods of time and the strength of the customer feedback is what stood out to us the most.”
“With the support of Blackstone’s capital, expertise, and global network we look forward to seeing RELEX cement its position as a market leader and continue to expand the number of products they can offer their customers.”
