Meet Djust, a French startup that essentially wants to build an e-commerce platform like Mirakl, but focused exclusively on business-to-business (B2B) activities. The company recently raised a $13 million funding round (€12 million).
NEA is leading the most recent funding round, with Elaia Partners also investing in the company. Elaia previously led Djust’s $4 million seed round in 2020.
The reason why I’m comparing Djust with Mirakl is that Djust’s co-founder and CEO Arnaud Rihiant was part of Mirakl’s founding team, working for the company for more than a decade. Mirakl is now one the highest valued French startup and competes with Adobe Commerce, Salesforce Commerce and Shopify.
Mirakl first started as a way to launch a marketplace of third-party sellers on an e-commerce website — a B2C strategy. Over time, Mirakl realized that marketplaces could also work well for B2B clients.
“Every time we would do a B2B project with Mirakl, I was shocked by the complexity of the project,” Rihiant told me. “When I looked into the matter, I realized that it’s not [Mirakl’s] fault. But the marketplace industry was designed for B2C.”
And yet, Rihiant believes that B2B commerce platforms represent an interesting opportunity as it has been an underserved market for too long. Many companies already have an ERP system, but they still deal with orders over the phone, via email and using Excel spreadsheets. In other words, it doesn’t scale well.
When it comes to the basics, Djust bridges the gap between legacy systems and its modern platform. It can connect with ERP systems and make data actionable.
From Djust, you can manage your catalog, your clients and your orders. And the startup offers advanced features in all those categories.
For instance, when it comes to catalog management, Djust lets you segment the catalog so that each client sees relevant products. Sometimes, clients also get different prices depending on what they agreed on when they signed the original contract.
When it’s time to order, Djust offers several options depending on the industry. For instance, you can enable a bidding process or facilitate re-orders for clients that mostly want to resupply their stores. You can also configure different payment options.
Djust is already working with clients in the construction industry, such as Bouygues and Eiffage, and with retailers looking for a platform to handle orders with their franchise stores, such as Monoprix, Franprix and Naturalia.
The startup is building a generic B2B commerce platform so it would work for different industries. For instance, restaurant chains could benefit from a product like Djust as their procurement system. Fashion brands that mostly sell their items in partner stores could connect with their retail partners on a Djust-powered platform.
The product can be used as a headless platform with your own frontend framework, or it can be used with Djust’s frontend customized to your needs. It works with different sales channels — clients can still offer phone or email orders without asking all their existing clients to go through a new website.
There are currently 45 people working for the startup. With today’s funding round, Djust plans to grow its team, iterate on its product and find new clients all across Europe.