Global leader in sustainability marketing technology, Provenance, has raised $5m to accelerate its goal to empower 1 billion citizens to choose products that match their values.
Research from The Pull Agency suggests that 7 in 10 British consumers are either confused by, or don’t believe, sustainability claims made by health & beauty brands.
Speaking to the British Beauty Council, Phil Verey, Managing Director of Provenance, explains that “Provenance is empowering British beauty shoppers to make informed buying decisions that positively impact both people and planet. To achieve this, we’re using technology to enable brands and retailers to surface proof-backed sustainability claims, ‘Proof Points’, at the point of sale. By increasing shopper engagement and e-commerce conversion for products with Proof Points, we’re growing market share for brands that are making a positive social and environmental impact”. Proof Point technology supports digitised claims from ‘Net Zero’ and ‘Fully Recyclable Packaging’ to ‘Living Wage’ and ‘Female Owned Business’.
Provenance has tripled its customer base in the last 12 months and is now empowering 150+ leading brands and retailers across the food & drink, beauty and fashion industries. “Today, Provenance is working with 120+ beauty brands and operating in 18 markets across Europe, North America and Asia Pacific. Here in the UK, we’re powering proof-backed claims for incredible British brands such as Tropic, REN, Evolve Organic, The INKEY List and Weleda. Some of the beauty retailers we’re working with today include Cult Beauty (part of The Hut Group), Naturisimo and Douglas, the German behemoth that stocks many UK brands” says Phil.
When asked what can we expect to see from Provenance in the next 3-5 years, Phil said “we are really focused on delivering impact at scale across the beauty industry in the next few years. Now, more than ever, we need industry players to come together to address the big challenges posed by the UN Sustainable Development Goals (‘SDGs’), with the 2030 target horizon rapidly approaching. We believe that by working closely with both retailers and brands, we can scale our technology quickly and help the industry educate consumers, shifting buying behaviours towards supporting more sustainable products, rewarding brands that are making a difference, and ultimately being a catalyst for positive systemic change.”
“We’re excited to play our part in this by establishing a consistent, unified and credible industry-wide approach to sustainability marketing; one that combats greenwashing head-on and delivers efficiency gains to brands looking to showcase their good work in multiple e-commerce environments.”
The company’s latest raise brings together world-class investor expertise from across the impact, consumer brand tech and Web3 ecosystems. They will invest the funds to develop their software product, and to supercharge brand and shopper reach. Provenance also plan to scale its team size to 50+ in 2022, investing in talent across product and engineering, sales, marketing and partnerships.
