Plato Secures €12.2 Million Seed Round to Revolutionize Wholesale Distribution with AI

Plato has closed a €12.2 million Seed funding round led by Atomico to scale its AI platform for wholesale distribution. The Berlin-based startup is building a specialized operating system designed to modernize the technological backbone of global trade. Existing investor Cherry Ventures joined the round alongside Discovery Ventures and D11Z. This significant capital injection highlights the growing investor appetite for AI solutions targeting specific industrial workflows. The platform functions as an intelligence layer that connects with traditional Enterprise Resource Planning systems to automate manual sales processes. By analyzing historical transaction data and pricing rules, the technology provides sales teams with proactive recommendations for customer outreach. Distributors using Plato can identify churn risks and cross-selling opportunities before they impact the bottom line. This shift allows employees to move away from reactive order management toward data-driven growth strategies.

With the new funds, the company plans to expand its engineering and AI research teams in Berlin to accelerate product development. The roadmap focuses on extending the platform capabilities into customer service automation and procurement workflows. These new features will help distributors orchestrate the entire commercial loop within a single AI-driven interface. Additionally, the company is preparing for an international expansion to bring its technology to the United States market.

Founders Benedikt Nolte, Matthias Heinrich Morales, and Oliver Birch launched the startup after developing the initial version within a family-owned distribution firm. This direct exposure to the challenges of legacy software and labor shortages ensured the product was built for real-world application. The founders aim to solve the inefficiency of static systems that only record events without offering strategic guidance. By automating repetitive tasks, the platform saves sales representatives an average of five hours every week.

The wholesale industry currently operates at a breaking point due to tightening margins and labor shortages. While traditional software acts as a system of record, Plato provides a proactive system of action that helps distributors stay competitive. The ability to generate complex quotes and handle customer communication automatically represents a major leap forward for the sector. As global supply chains become more complex, specialized AI tools will become essential for maintaining operational health.