Oritain raises USD 57 million, led by Highland Europe, to accelerate its growth as the world’s leading forensic technology for supply chain traceability

• Oritain is the leading forensic traceability company, combining forensic and data science to provide data-driven insights on the true origin of goods and commodities.
• From cotton to coffee, from food to fabric, Oritain’s technology can identify the origin of products worldwide.
• Over 100 global customers, including many of the world’s largest brands and retailers, rely on Oritain’s technology to verify their supply chain and protect their products in international markets.
• New funding led by Highland Europe will enable the company to accelerate its go-to-market plans for current and new products, building on a track record of exceptional growth.

London, Washington DC, 12 July:

Oritain, the global leader in forensic supply chain traceability, has raised USD $57 million in a Series C funding round led by Highland Europe, with Jacob Bernstein from Highland joining the board. Long Ridge Equity Partners, the company’s existing investors, also participated in the round. The funding will strengthen Oritain’s technology and product offering and expand into new markets and industries.

Oritain is the global leader in verifying the true origin of products and commodities. Luxury high-end fashion and retail companies, including Lacoste, Supima, and Primark, and food producers, such as A2 Milk and Nescafe, use Oritain to assure customers that the items they buy are genuine and produced from an ethical supply chain. Using proprietary technology, the company can create a unique fingerprint from products worldwide and prove their provenance from meat to honey, milk, and fibers. With this core technology, the company has built the world’s most sophisticated database of product origin fingerprints to easily identify and compare origin across a wide range of commodity goods.

Building trust in a fragmented market

Fraud and counterfeiting, exacerbated by increasingly fragmented global supply chains, cost the global economy over $500 billion annually. At the same time, environmental issues such as deforestation are increasingly top of investor and customer concerns, which can damage brand reputations built up over decades. Oritain provides data-driven insights to help producers and manufacturers to monitor and adapt their supply chain to safeguard and improve transparency and certainty for their clients worldwide.

Unlike traditional traceability methods, which can be removed or tampered with, Oritain’s technology combines cutting-edge forensic science with world-leading data to analyze the intrinsic properties of a product to verify its origin. The company’s global labs can create an Origin Fingerprint of a product by analyzing trace elements affected by environmental factors such as soil composition, climate, altitude, and precipitation. Once an Origin Fingerprint has been identified, it can never be tampered with or destroyed.

These fingerprints are fed into industry-leading data banks of products monitoring complex global supply chains such as palm oil, coffee, cocoa, cotton, vanilla, and soy and used as benchmarks to audit products at any point in the supply chain. Companies rely on this data to prove the authenticity and quality of their products, reducing risk and fraud.

The need for Oritain’s service is underlined through a client retention rate of over 100% and compound annual growth of 90% year on year over the past six years. With many of the world’s leading brands and trusted food designations as clients, Oritain intends to be the world’s most trusted company for verifying the origin of products and raw materials to create traceable supply chains worldwide.

Supporting the Future of ESG

As well as providing tools to verify the legitimacy and provenance of a product, Oritain partners with companies to comply with ESG criteria, something investors increasingly demand. In addition, countries are creating new transparency and reporting regulations as part of Sustainable Development Goals across the globe encompassing deforestation, forced labor, and product fraud. Companies that can prove the authenticity, quality, and sustainability of their products and the supply chain will gain a competitive advantage by demonstrating to customers and investors that they meet high ethical standards.

BNP Paribas Exane acted as advisers on the transaction.

Grant Cochrane, Global CEO at Oritain, said: “Over the past 15 years, Oritain has pioneered ground-breaking forensic and data science to become the world’s most trusted verification partner to leading global brands and institutions, providing them with the insights they need to make the critical decisions on their supply chains. Our relentless focus on data, science, and process integrity has enabled us to become long-term partners with our clients to ensure the integrity of their supply chains, which is increasingly difficult to achieve in globalized and complex markets. We’re delighted to announce this new funding round, led by Highland Europe, to support our expansion plans as we reach new markets and industries.”

Jacob Bernstein at Highland Europe said: “Oritain’s forensic science can take a commodity sample and tell you precisely where in the world it comes from. Does this cocoa come from a deforested national park? Is this cotton from where my supplier says it is? Is this coffee truly Brazilian, as the label says? This ground-breaking technology is a dream solution for sourcing and sustainability leaders at the world’s largest brands who can finally get to grips with the authenticity of their supply chains. We are immensely proud to partner with the Oritain team to revolutionize origin verification.”

Angad Singh at Long Ridge Equity Partners said: “We are thrilled to deepen our partnership with Oritain and welcome Highland to the company and board. Together, we are excited to take Oritain to new heights and help the world’s most sophisticated brands, retailers, and governments ensure the integrity of their supply chain, protect human rights and comply with a complex web of international regulations for supply chains.”

About Oritain:
Founded in Dunedin in 2008, Oritain is a world leader in using forensic science to verify product origin. Headquartered in New Zealand, Oritain partners with some of the world’s biggest and boldest brands to support their ESG commitments, reduce the risk of fraud and unethical practices and protect their reputations. A product’s origin can be identified by measuring the varying chemical composition of different environments. As something is grown, reared, or made, it absorbs a unique ratio of elements, depending on the local temperature, altitude, precipitation, and soil condition – known as an origin fingerprint. Oritain’s ground-breaking science is explained here.