As we have moved to virtual briefings, I have increasingly been excerpting short video segments (with permission ) as part of my Analyst Cam series.
This time it is Giacomo Franchini, founder and CEO of SupplHi which provides a sourcing and vendor management platform for complex industrial manufacturers and service providers
They were introduced to me by SAP.iO Foundries, which represent SAP’s startup programs, including accelerators, that enable startups that can deliver value to SAP customers (see their presentation to me here ). SupplHi was one of the startups in their Sustainability cohort last year.
Giacomo estimates SupplHi’s addressable market at $33 trillion or 30% of global GDP. This includes verticals like shipbuilding, energy equipment makers and various product manufacturing. He is a former Bain strategy consultant and unafraid to tackle complicated challenges which typify that world. As an example, they have built their own standard categorizations by verticals to better classify the nearly 70,000 suppliers across 100+ countries on their platform. As he says, you can drill down into not one, but 70 different types of pumps.
He spends time talking about the sustainability challenge – this segment is estimated to account for 21% of total CO2 emissions. You can measure suppliers on their pollution, energy efficiency and waste management attributes, and other ESG metrics like those on health and safety and governance.
Their supplier base and category filters also position them as useful sourcing tools. He provides an overview on a couple of large customers who use them more broadly like Fincantieri, a shipbuilder with over 12,000 suppliers and Maire Tecnimont, an engineering and construction company with over 30,000 suppliers.
I liked several things about SupplHi. They are tackling direct suppliers in highly specialized verticals. Too many other networks primarily focus on indirect, back office spend. In a separate conversation, Giacomo told me about his global experience while at Bain. We also talked about Italy’s creativity and industrial design aesthetics. The vertical and geographic quotient of this team is impressive, to say the least.
