Meet Customizea French startup that essentially wants to build an e-commerce platform like Miracle, but exclusively focused on business-to-business (B2B) activities. The company recently raised a $13 million (€12 million) funding round.
NEA is leading the most recent financing round, with Elaia Partners also investing in the company. Elaia previously led Djust’s $4 million seed round in 2020.
The reason I compare Djust to Mirakl is that Djust’s co-founder and CEO Arnaud Rihiant was part of Mirakl’s founding team and worked for the company for over a decade. Mirakl is now one of the most valued French startups, competing with Adobe Commerce, Salesforce Commerce and Shopify.
Mirakl started as a way to launch a marketplace of third-party sellers on an e-commerce website – a B2C strategy. Over time, Mirakl realized that marketplaces could also work well for B2B customers.
“Every time we did a B2B project with Mirakl, I was shocked by the complexity of the project,” Rihiant told me. “When I studied the case, I realized that is not the case [Mirakl’s] debt. But the marketplace industry is designed for B2C.”
Still, Rihiant believes B2B commerce platforms represent an interesting opportunity, as it has been an underserved market for too long. Many companies already have an ERP system in place, but still handle orders by phone, email, and using Excel spreadsheets. In other words, it doesn’t scale well.
When it comes to the basics, Djust bridges the gap between legacy systems and its modern platform. It can connect to ERP systems and make data actionable.
You manage your catalogue, your customers and your orders from Djust. And the startup offers advanced features in all those categories.
For example, when it comes to catalog management, Djust allows you to segment the catalog so that each customer sees relevant products. Sometimes customers also get different prices depending on what they agreed upon when they signed the original contract.
When it’s time to order, Djust offers several options depending on the industry. For example, you can enable a bidding process or facilitate reorders for customers who mainly want to supply their stores. You can also configure different payment options.
Djust already works with clients in the construction industry, such as Bouygues and Eiffage, as well as retailers seeking a platform to fulfill orders with their franchise stores, such as Monoprix, Franprix and Naturalia.
The startup is building a generic B2B trading platform so it would work for different industries. For example, restaurant chains could benefit from a product like Djust as a purchasing system. Fashion brands that mainly sell their items in partner stores can connect with their retail partners on a Djust powered platform.
The product can be used as a headless platform with your own frontend framework, or it can be used with Djust’s frontend customized to your needs. It works with different sales channels: customers can still place orders by phone or email without asking all their existing customers to visit a new website.
There are currently 45 people working for the startup. With today’s funding round, Djust plans to expand its team, replicate its product and find new customers across Europe.