Sunhat receives two million euros in seed financing

The Cologne-based start-up Sunhat secures seed funding of two million euros. The company aims to optimize the processes for answering sustainability questionnaires and ESG ratings for large companies in the supplier industry.

The round was led by renowned early-stage investors such as Capnamic Ventures and xdeck ventures, together with participation from WEPA Ventures. In addition, various business angels from the technology, compliance and sustainability sectors have expressed their confidence in the software solution for corporate customers.

Instead of driving change in the organization and anchoring sustainability in relevant processes, sustainability teams today spend a large part of their time on the administrative effort around external questionnaires and requirements.

Lukas Vogt, Cofounder & CEO Sunhat

In the supply industry, sustainability officers are faced with the challenge of processing a large number of questionnaires and certifications on sustainability criteria from various providers. Customers and business partners are increasingly demanding substantiated evidence and detailed explanations of sustainable developments such as the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions or the implementation of internal sustainability targets.

If companies are unable to provide this evidence, they face the threat of significant sales losses, the loss of customer relationships and potentially also high fines in the millions. It is therefore becoming increasingly important that companies have effective systems and solutions in place to meet sustainability requirements in their supply chain and provide evidence.

We see software as a solution for many companies to become more efficient, as skilled staff and budgets are not sufficient to keep up with new requirements.

Jörg Binnenbrücker, Founding Partner Capnamic Ventures

Sunhat offers a solution for answering sustainability questionnaires that automates the entire process from mapping the questionnaires to collecting and verifying evidence for the answers.

Sunhat offers SaaS solution

A key feature of Sunhat's software is its proprietary "similarity score", which compares existing responses with incoming sustainability requests. This enables the software to respond quickly to new requests from customers and other stakeholders. The resulting database is connected via an API to various third-party portals for checking sustainability criteria.

Sunhat was founded in 2022 by Lukas Vogt (CEO), Alexander Behr (COO) and Ali Kamalizade (CTO). The company is based in Cologne, Germany. The startup experienced a promising launch last year and has already been able to convince well-known large companies of its software solution. Among the company's customers is the hygiene paper manufacturer WEPA.