Knowde
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The chemical industry is the lifeblood of the global economy, supplying key ingredients and components across virtually every sector. Valued at over $5T, the industry underpins critical products and processes in industries from aerospace and automotive to food, pharmaceuticals, and consumer goods. Yet despite its immense size and importance, the sector has lagged significantly in adopting digital technologies and online business models that have transformed industries from media and retail to transportation and real estate over the past 20 years. Information asymmetry, fragmented supply chains, and reliance on antiquated sales processes have led to system-wide inefficiencies hampering innovation.
Enter Knowde – an ambitious Silicon Valley startup aiming to bring the global chemical supply chain into the 21st century. Founded in 2017 by Ali Amin-Javaheri, Knowde operates an online B2B marketplace connecting buyers and suppliers of specialty chemicals worldwide. Through its SaaS platform, Knowde offers buyers seamless search, discovery, and purchases of chemicals while streamlining operations for suppliers. And Knowde now facilitates over $7B in annual chemical product listings and sales on its fast-growing platform.
Knowde’s origin traces back over 40 years to Iran in the 1970s. During this time, Ali Amin-Javaheri’s father, Mehdi, studied chemical engineering at the University of Maryland before working at DuPont's Iran operations. However, mounting political instability forced Mehdi to uproot his family and immigrate to America in 1985. Despite his credentials, Mehdi struggled to find comparable chemical engineering jobs in the U.S. and ended up taking blue-collar roles to provide for his family.
The immense respect Mehdi had for scientific innovation left an impression on a young Ali growing up. He dutifully read through chemistry books and trade magazines in his free time, fascinated by the industry his father never had a chance to properly participate in. Although Ali studied information systems in college, he jumped at the chance to join a Chemical ecommerce startup called ChemPoint in Seattle after graduation. At ChemPoint, Ali spearheaded engineering, product, and later sales – helping them reach over $400M in revenues. However, the company shifted focus from transformational platform play to profitable distributor.
In 2017, Ali teamed up with two former colleagues to launch Knowde. They aimed to directly tackle the lack of transparency, digitalization, and efficiency that plagued global chemical supply chains by building a two-sided marketplace connecting buyers and suppliers. Backed by its founders’ lifelong passion for scientific innovation and operational expertise, Knowde was primed to lead the next wave of chemical industry disruption.
Knowde developed an online B2B marketplace to streamline chemical procurement. The platform creates value for both buyers and suppliers of specialty chemicals. For corporate R&D labs, Knowde offers a centralized destination to search, evaluate, sample, and procure chemicals. Buyers can browse Knowde’s catalog of 180K+ chemical products from thousands of suppliers based on specifications like chemistry, application, and technical properties. Detailed product pages provide buying options, minimum order quantities, and specifications.
Buyers can instantly view pricing, request quotes, and order lab samples or bulk quantities entirely online. Knowde handles fulfillment logistics while suppliers ship ordered products directly to the buyer. This on-demand procurement combined with real-time visibility differentiates Knowde from traditional catalog aggregators. Beyond basic search and transactions, Knowde also provides VMI (vendor managed inventory) and raw material localization programs to optimize procurement for large enterprises. These value-added services help Knowde cater to more complex business needs.
For specialty chemical manufacturers, distributors, and suppliers, Knowde offers a self-serve ecommerce channel to reach new buyers online. Companies can easily list their in-stock chemicals inventory including pricing, quantities, and product details. Knowde creates branded digital storefronts for suppliers to market offerings and manage orders, shipments, and revenue online. Suppliers benefit from exposure to new potential buyers and streamlined order processing. Knowde also provides targeted digital marketing and analytics capabilities to help suppliers run campaigns and track performance. This can all be managed through Knowde’s supplier console allowing companies to sell products in a purely digital environment. By directly connecting chemical buyers and sellers online, Knowde aims to reduce existing layers of middlemen and cost markups leading to mutual value creation.
Since its 2017 founding, Knowde has:
- 8K+ suppliers listed on the B2B marketplace
- 180K+ chemical products inventoried
- Over $7B in product listings
- 3M+ annual searches from 290K+ monthly visitors
Usage remains concentrated in the US but Knowde facilitates cross-border trade enabling international expansion. The company serves enterprise customers across diverse end markets like food and beverage, aerospace, electronics, pharma, and consumer goods. Knowde has emerged as the largest B2B marketplace within the massive global specialty chemicals sector. While most investment has focused on building marketplace scale and liquidity, Knowde now aims to expand its value-added services and global footprint. The company could also look to move beyond basic listing and transactions to financial services or even private label product development. Regardless of exact direction, Knowde sits at the epicenter of digital innovation across the antiquated chemicals sales process.
While Knowde has cemented itself as the largest digital specialty chemicals marketplace, fragmented supply chains and reliance on legacy sales processes leaves room for disruption across the $5T global chemicals sector. Smaller companies like BluePallet and Chembid offer some marketplace or search functionalities regionally, but lack Knowde’s scale, funding, and operational maturity. More threatening competition comes from large distributors and producers including Univar, Brenntag, BASF, and Dow that still dominate sales. Although slow to react, these incumbents retain immense distribution advantages from existing customer relationships and sales forces.
However, Knowde’s agility, product depth, and digital-first business model help differentiate its platform. Knowde will need to continue enhancing its value proposition while leveraging technology to offset the scale advantages of legacy chemical giants. As the industry races towards increased online penetration, Knowde’s head start gives it pole position to continue leading disruption. But execution risks remain around managing volatile supply chains and adapting to shifting trade policies globally.
Within the complex and opaque world of chemical sales, Knowde has built a transformational platform bringing new levels of digitization, transparency and efficiency to procurement. It has benefitted from first-mover advantage in a sector ripe for disruption to drive rapid adoption across thousands of buyers and suppliers. And Knowde now sits at the forefront of innovation within one of the global economy’s most critical hidden engines. However, capturing greater transaction volumes, catering to larger enterprises, and continuing international expansion remains essential to cementing market leadership. Competing with the immense scale and relationships of chemical incumbents also persists as Knowde’s biggest threat.
But with strong momentum, Knowde looks positioned to drive the next wave of supply chain digitization. The company’s ultimate impact disrupting the $5 trillion chemical industry remains to be seen. But by bringing newfound transparency and efficiency to R&D laboratories, supply chains, and sales processes, Knowde offers a glimpse into the future for one of the global economy’s most critical sectors underpinning nearly every physical product on earth.
