Change Ventures and Equity United participate in the $40M Series A funding round of their portfolio company Eurora
Photo: Eurora founders (from left) Marko Lastik, Anneli Aljas, Egon Veermäe
- The funding is targeted for its AI-based system to automate EU e-commerce shipping compliance.
- Connected Capital led the round, with previous backers Change Ventures and Equity United, and Eurora’s founder and Marko Lastik, also participating.
- The new funding will be used for geographical expansion in the U.K., the U.S., and the Middle East, where rapid and high growth in the sector is expected.
Founded in 2018, Eurora offers an AI-based and machine learning-backed cross-border e-commerce compliance platform, Eurora takes care of all cross-border trade regulations so businesses can focus on their core activity.
In July last year, 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. 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.
Taking up the challenge to address the issue, Estonia-based cross-border e-commerce compliance platform Eurora Solutions has raised $40 million in funding. The oversubscribed Series A round was led by Amsterdam-based Connected Capital, with existing investors, including Change Ventures, Equity United and Eurora’s founder Marko Lastik participating. The company has earlier raised $3 million in 2021, just 9 months ago.
The Estonian startup’s AI/ML-based platform automates tax, compliance and customs services. It assigns e-commerce products an appropriate HS code, calculates the applicable VAT and duty amounts, and automatically creates electronic declarations for EU duties and taxes via simple API integration.
Marko Lastik, the founder and CEO of Eurora Solutions, explained: “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.”
According to Eurora, the platform can deliver more than 96% accuracy for e-commerce packages despite often patchy input data and operates at a fraction of the time and price of hybrid or manual code allocation solutions commonly used today.
Eurora already has over 200 paying clients worldwide and has massive market potential. In the past decade, global parcel shipping volume has almost tripled, and by 2026, this market is expected to reach over 260 billion parcels delivered. What’s more, the B2B platform can be used by online sellers, marketplaces, logistics and postal companies, as well as tax and customs authorities.
The fresh funding 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, and product development and potential add-on acquisitions.
Read more on the investment on:
- About Change Ventures: https://www.changeventures.com
- About Equity United: https://www.equityunited.eu
Photo credit: Eurora; https://unsplash.com/@freedomstudios