Published on April 16, 2021
Amsterdam, Netherlands, April 8th 2021: SwipeGuide, an Amsterdam-based B2B SaaS company, is the first company in Europe to facilitate the crowdsourcing of critical operational knowledge to improve performance across distributed teams for manufacturing companies based on its proprietary technologies.
The industrial tech company accelerates its international expansion and digital transformation in factories worldwide with a fresh €5M ($6M) funding round led by Speedinvest. CapitalT, Plug and Play Ventures, and existing investors Newion and Brumbucks also participated in the round to fuel SwipeGuide’s growth in the manufacturing technology industry.
Newion invested in SwipeGuide since beginning of 2018. We see many opportunities ahead and are excited to continue supporting the team in their further growth to market leadership.
Scalable digital standards deliver global results
The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the demand for easy-to-use smart tools that support the digitization of production processes and eliminate inefficiencies. Top manufacturers like PepsiCo, Heineken, ABB, and Orkla use SwipeGuide to capture, standardize, scale and improve critical operational knowledge globally by allowing shop floor teams to easily digitize crucial instructions, operational routines and procedures with the unique apps. The data & control points harvested through execution help identify improvement potential at scale.
SwipeGuide is used in more than 200 plants in 89 countries worldwide, with more than 30,000 unique monthly users continuously improving operational performance. “Digital standard work is a driver of scalable lean manufacturing across locations at PepsiCo. SwipeGuide helps us improve a culture of self-guided learning and operational excellence across sites”, Jose Carlos Matias, MPE Europe of PepsiCo, explains.
“We bring simplicity in a world where complexity is still the norm. With SwipeGuide’s focus on crowdsourced knowledge performance, companies can finally embrace frontline workers’ expertise, empower a new generation of workers, and trust that their standards will reflect it. Our platform’s AI-driven technology is the key component to identifying and scaling best-performing knowledge resulting in downtime reduction”, says SwipeGuide’s CEO Willemijn Schneyder.
International growth-focus
This investment round is led by the European venture capitalist firm Speedinvest. “Willemijn Schneyder, Daan Assen, and their team have built a powerful platform that boosts factory floor performance. We’re convinced SwipeGuide is a game-changer for manufacturing companies around the world”, Marie-Hélène Ametsreiter, lead partner of the Speedinvest Industrial Tech team says about their decision to invest in the promising B2B SaaS company. Speedinvest’s portfolio includes high-growth tech companies like TWAICE, crate.io, TIER Mobility, and Senseforce.
Co-investor CapitalT is an advocate for diverse teams and helps companies like WizeNoze and Codegem to scale groundbreaking ideas faster. Also, Silicon Valley-based Plug and Play Ventures and existing investor Newion are participating in the round.
SwipeGuide operates out of Amsterdam and Chicago, and the company aims to double its staff in 2021. Marie-Hélène Ametsreiter – lead partner of the Speedinvest Industrial Tech team supporting the digitization of Europe’s Industrial Tech sector, and Janneke Niessen – founding partner at CapitalT and serial entrepreneur – are joining the board.
About SwipeGuide:
SwipeGuide is an Amsterdam-based IndustrialTech company empowering workforce excellence through AI-enabled digital work instructions and standard operating procedures for global manufacturing companies including Heineken, PepsiCo, and Coca-Cola. SwipeGuide is the winner of the 2020 EIT Digital Challenge Award for deeptech scale-ups. SwipeGuide is used in more than 200 plants in 89 countries worldwide, with more than 30,000 unique monthly users continuously improving operational performance. The company with headquarters in Amsterdam, Netherlands, and Chicago, US, employs 25 employees and is hiring 25 new employees by the end of 2021. SwipeGuide has raised a total of €6.3M to date.
About Speedinvest:
Speedinvest is one of Europe’s most active early-stage investors, with more than €400m AUM, 40 investors, and offices in Berlin, London, Munich, Paris, Vienna and San Francisco. Our focused investment teams partner with founders building Deep Tech, Fintech, Industrial Tech, Network Effects, Digital Health and Subscriptions startups.
About CapitalT:
CapitalT is a seed stage VC that invests in software technology companies. The fund focuses on digital health, education, B2B SaaS with an emphasis on discovering high-quality founding teams. In order to find these teams, CapitalT relies on proprietary technology to evaluate each company.
About Plug and Play Ventures:
Plug and Play Ventures is an early-stage investor headquartered in Silicon Valley with a portfolio including such companies as Dropbox, PayPal, Lending Club, Honey, Tenor, N26 and hundreds of others. Within their unique Plug and Play ecosystem with 500+ corporate partners across 19 industries and 36 locations they invest in the most innovative companies.
