Plato's AI Platform Targets $3 Trillion Trade Sector
Plato founders Benedikt Nolte, Matthias Heinrich and Oliver Birch
Wholesale distribution moves roughly one in every five dollars of global production output. Yet the software running this $3 trillion industry has barely kept pace. Sales teams react instead of plan, ERP systems log what happened instead of guiding what to do next, and quoting remains stubbornly manual. Berlin-based startup Plato wants to change that.
According to an Atomico press release, the venture capital firm is leading a $14.5 million seed round in Plato, one of the largest seed rounds in the category. Cherry Ventures doubled down on its existing stake, with Discovery Ventures and Dieter Schwarz's D11Z also joining the round.
So what does Plato actually do? Think of it as an AI layer that sits on top of a distributor's existing ERP system without replacing it. Instead of forcing companies to rip out legacy infrastructure, Plato connects to what is already there and puts it to work. Field and inside sales teams get proactive recommendations on which customers are at risk of churning, where upsell opportunities exist, and how to generate quotes faster. The results, according to the company, include up to 15% revenue uplift, automated quoting that saves hours weekly, and up to 10x higher sales efficiency.
The founding team has skin in the game. CEO Benedikt Nolte built the first version of Plato inside his own family distribution business, alongside co-founders Matthias Heinrich Morales and Oliver Birch. That origin story gives the product a credibility that pure tech-side approaches often lack.
Plato is currently expanding from sales intelligence into customer service and procurement, with ambitions to become the AI operating system powering global distribution.
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