Maturity Matrix 2022: Supply chain start-ups are riding the investment wave

European supply chain start-ups appear to be making the most of the huge wave of investment in digitalization. As the basis for its annual Maturity Matrix, Supply Chain Media analysed a total of 125 start-ups in Europe and surveyed 41 of them. According to over 60% of those surveyed, they now have more sales leads than they did before the COVID-19 pandemic. Since last year, besides growth in the number of supply chain sustainability-related players, new start-ups have also emerged in transport planning and demand planning.

This latest version of the matrix still has ten different categories of solutions, from supplier management upstream in the chain to last-mile delivery on the customer side. The current ten categories are online solutions for supplier management, sustainability, ocean and air freight forwarding, inventory counting & process optimization, tracking & tracing, blockchain for supply chain, demand planning & forecasting, transport planning & visibility, road freight matching and last mile delivery. The vertical axis of the matrix shows the maturity of the start-up or scale-up based on its age, number of employees, awards won, number of customers and, in particular, capital raised.

To be included in this matrix, the companies must have been founded in or since 2016, because a start-up is at most five years old. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the age in years and months has been rounded down.

Start-up contest

Supply Chain Media will be organizing the European Supply Chain Start-up Contest for the fifth time on 19 May 2022. The award will once again be voted for and presented during the inNOWvate Supply Chain Event at Movie Theatre Pathé in Ede, the Netherlands.