From left: Marko Lastik (founder), Anneli Aljas (CFO), Egon Veermae (COO) | Image credit: Eurora Solutions
Tallinn-based Eurora Solutions, an Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning-backed cross-border e-commerce compliance platform, announced on Wednesday that it has raised $40M (approximately €37.71M) in an oversubscribed Series A round of funding.
The company says that the proceeds will be used for geographical expansion in the UK, the US, and the Middle East, where rapid and high growth in the sector is expected. Besides, the funds will also help the company in product development and potential add-on acquisitions.
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Anneli Aljas, the former VP of Finance at Bolt, recently joined to head the company’s expansion and growth.
Eurora Solutions raised $3M in 2021, just 9 months ago when e-commerce companies faced new EU trade rules. The company’s early investors include Change Ventures and industry insiders like Roger Crook (former CEO, DHL Global Forwarding).
Investors in this round
The round was led by Amsterdam-based Connected Capital. Existing investors, including Change Ventures, Equity United, and Eurora’s founder Marko Lastik, also participated in this round.
Shaffy Roell, Associate at Connected Capital, says, “We are excited to lead the investment into Eurora and actively support the team in scaling the platform globally. The team has impressed us with their quality, domain expertise, and vision for the company. We have seen a clear push from regulators to improve transparency and reporting for the increasing number of goods that enter through customs. We believe that Eurora has built a unique AI/ML-based platform, significantly improving compliance while reducing package delays and lowering costs for e-commerce parcels shipped into Europe.”
Connected Capital is an investor in growth and buy-out stage European B2B SaaS companies. It provides capital and expertise in pure-play SaaS to entrepreneurs to accelerate the growth of their businesses. Backed by institutional investors, the firm operates across Europe with over €200M in capital under management.
Pain point of the industry
In July, 2021, the EU ended the €22 import VAT exemption and new trading regulations between the EU and the rest of the world gradually came into effect. This was intended to create a level playing field with local European manufacturers and retailers.
However, complying with this new regulation in the high volume, low value-per-package e-commerce market has been a challenge for merchants and logistics operators from the UK, the US, China, and the rest of the world.
These players are looking for software-based solutions that can help handle the billions of cross-border packages affected by this new EU regulation. Solutions with a high degree of accuracy, speed and at a low cost per package are required.
This is where Eurora Solutions looks to step up and make a difference.
Securely manage all aspects of cross-border trade
Founded in 2018 by Marko Lastik, Eurora’s proprietary AI/ML-based platform automates tax, compliance and customs services. It assigns e-commerce products with an appropriate HS code (Harmonised Commodity Description and Coding System), calculates the applicable VAT and duty amounts, and automatically creates electronic declarations for EU duties and taxes via simple API integration.
Marko Lastik explains, “The number of different declarations, codes, reports, records and tax calculations required in the international shipping business is ever increasing. Without the correct data sets and automated solutions for tax calculations and electronic declarations, cross-border trade has slowed down, resulting in severe delays, fines, increasing costs, loss of customers etc. Eurora’s AI uses 500+ million records of training data from actual transactions from the largest logistics providers in the world, giving Eurora the deepest knowledge of actual market practices. By using Eurora’s platform, merchants can make deliveries faster and at lower costs, which results in increased customer satisfaction and trust.”
The B2B platform can be used by online sellers, marketplaces, logistics and postal companies, as well as tax and customs authorities. Eurora claims that its platform can automatically process 5,000 requests per second with up to 96 per cent accuracy, the highest level of accuracy, speed, and automation available in the market.
According to a statement, Eurora was the first official VAT Intermediary and the first company to issue an IOSS number – the Import One-Stop Shop (IOSS) is the electronic portal that businesses can use, since 1 July 2021, to comply with their VAT e-commerce obligations on distance sales of imported goods.
Eurora employs over 150 people in 15 countries, and serves 200 paying clients worldwide.
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