Qualifyze, a German supply chain compliance group, raised $12 million in a funding round that included an investment group associated with Silvio Berlusconi, the late prime minister of Italy.
The money will be used to boost Qualifyze’s efforts to offer an end-to-end supply chain compliance platform, the company said in an Aug. 21 press release.
Qualifyze, which was founded in 2019 and is based in Frankfurt, uses cloud-based audit data to track, monitor and forecast compliance adherence in the pharmaceutical industry.
The Italian family office H14, which Bloomberg reports is linked to Berlusconi, supported the round. Also participating were existing investors HV Capital and Rheingau Founders plus new investor HarbourVest Partners, Qualifyze said.
The COVID-19 pandemic cast a bright light on the the ongoing need to monitor the strengths and weaknesses of the pharmaceutical supply chain.
In July, Sen. Gary Peters, D-Michigan, offered up a bipartisan bill to create a federal database to map supply chain vulnerabilities. Peters, chairman of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, teamed with James Lankford, R-Oklahoma, and Mike Braun, R-Indiana, to forward the Mapping America’s Pharmaceutical Supply Act.
The proposed legislation would require the Department of Health and Human Services to catalog the origin of each drug, quantities available and the location of facilities used to manufacture them. It also would map inspections, recalls and import alerts.