About Plato
Built by people who grew up in the industry, for the wholesalers writing their next chapter.

Relationships still close every deal that matters. Plato lets you leverage your data to build and nourish those relationships.

Our story

I grew up in a family wholesale business. I watched the internet erase our press distribution arm, not in a crash, but quietly, year by year, until what had taken decades to build was simply gone.

Looking across the distribution industry, I saw the same vulnerability taking shape: labour shortages, a struggling economy, and sales teams still working reactively while the markets they had spent generations building only got harder to hold onto.

The data to fix this existed in every ERP all along. Nobody was turning it into action.

That's why we built Plato: to give wholesale best-in-class AI, and help it walk stronger into the next generation.

Benedikt Nolte
CEO & Co-Founder

Plato in a nutshell
Born in wholesale distribution. Built for its future.

Plato was founded by people who grew up inside the industry they’re transforming. We understand the problems sales organisations face — and Plato is how we’re solving them.

2024 — Founded Started Plato in Berlin. Backed by Cherry Ventures — €6.5M.

Three founders from wholesale, product and engineering with one firm conviction: ERP data can do far more than accounting.

2025 — First customers Technical wholesalers go live.

First teams saw visible impact within weeks. Proof that AI-powered intelligence works for repeat-order distribution — in production, not pitch decks.

2026 — ERP Partnerships & SEED ROUND All major ERP providers on board. Backed by Atomico — €12M.

We work with the leading ERP providers in the DACH region. Plato can now be up and running within days rather than months. This has been followed by Europe’s largest funding round in the technical and industrial wholesale sector, led by Atomico.

Today — Building the category Building the globally leading vertical AI company for distribution.

Working with leading distribution businesses across Europe to become the AI platform their entire operation runs on — from sales across the full stack.

Backed by
Investors who transform wholesale distribution.

  • Atomico Logo Atomico
  • Cherry Ventures Logo Cherry Ventures
  • Lucid Logo Lucid
  • Discovery Ventures Logo Discovery Ventures
  • D11Z Logo D11Z
  • s16vc Logo s16vc

Supported by
Angel investors who got in on the ground floor.

  • Michael Wax

    Forto

  • Hanno Renner

    Personio

  • Mario Götze

    Professional football player & investor

  • Gerhard Cromme

    Former CEO Thyssen Krupp & 
Siemens board member

  • Fabian Q. Veit

    Senior VP Celonis

  • Benedikt Schifferer

    Leading AI scientist at NVIDIA

  • Dr. Leopold 
von Schlenk-Barnsdorf

    Founder FamilienUnternehmerTUM

  • David Clarke

    Former CTO Workday

  • Julius Koehler

    Managing Director Sennder

  • Eva Spannagl

    Startups at OpenAI

  • Benedikt Sauter

    CEO Xentral

  • Patrick Thelen

    CEO Procuros

  • Michael Haufler

    Founder Scireum

  • Prof. Dr. Maximilian Lude

    CEO Philoneos

  • Roxane Hassler

    Former Product lead Pitch

  • Charles Songhurst

    Former General Manager Microsoft

  • Marius Stäcker

    Founder Tooltime

The Founders
Founded by people who know distribution.

  • Benedikt Nolte

    CEO & Co-Founder

    Grew up in a family wholesale business. Saw the knowledge-loss problem firsthand when experienced reps retired. Spent years watching sales teams work with tools that were never designed for them.

    Combines deep industry understanding with the ambition to build the AI platform that wholesale distribution deserves.

    LinkedIn

  • Matthias Heinrich

    CPO & Co-Founder

    Technical depth and product vision. Understands how to build AI systems that learn from data at scale — while keeping the interface simple enough that field reps open it instead of their notebook.

    Brings experience from building data-driven recommendations for e-commerce applications and designing software for SMBs.

    LinkedIn

  • Oliver Birch

    CTO & Co-Founder

    Bridges the gap between enterprise-grade infrastructure and the day-to-day reality of distribution teams. Obsessed with making complex technology feel effortless — from ERP integration architecture to the button a rep taps on their phone.

    LinkedIn