AI startup raises millions for the battle for the future of e-commerce: "gives us the necessary muscle to not only dominate in Denmark, but really roll out internationally" This post is also available in: Danish AI startup Cernel has secured DKK 30 million in new capital and a valuation in the triple-digit millions. The investment comes just a year and a half after the company's first funding round and will now accelerate the company's international expansion. "We've seen demand that has exceeded our wildest expectations. Companies struggle with huge amounts of product data, and our AI removes the bottlenecks that previously slowed their growth. The investment from Seed Capital gives us the necessary muscle to not only dominate in Denmark, but really roll out internationally," says Andreas Busch, CEO and founder of Cernel together with Magnus Bruun Rasmussen, Mathias Fenger and Jacob Lillelund. The new round is led by venture fund Seed Capital with participation from a number of serial entrepreneurs and angel investors. With the new capital, the company will now scale the product internationally and position itself in the rapidly growing market of AI-powered e-commerce. Seed Capital believes the company addresses a fundamental problem in the global e-commerce industry. "At Seed Capital, we look for entrepreneurs who are not just using AI, but redefining the way an entire industry operates. Andreas and the Cernel team have moved with incredible speed to build a true 'reasoning layer' for commerce. We believe they will deliver the infrastructure that will power the next decade of global retail," says Geeta Schmidt, General Partner at Seed Capital. The fund has previously invested in Danish growth companies such as Trustpilot, Lunar and Flatpay, and the investment in Cernel places the startup in the same portfolio. In addition to Seed Capital, a number of new and existing investors are also participating. The total investor group includes Nicolaj Reffstrup, Ulrik Garde Due, Jørgen Balle Olesen, Rasmus Busk, Rasmus Hellmund Carlsen, Founderment, Stefan Rosenlund, Mikkel Salling, Jesper Hvejsel, Kresten Krab Thorup and Anders Thorhauge Sandholm. Solving e-commerce's data problem. Cernel works with an area that has increasingly become a bottleneck in digital commerce: product data. Many companies still handle large amounts of information manually in spreadsheets, making it difficult to scale sales and become visible in new AI-powered search and commerce channels. Cernel has therefore developed an AI platform that automates the entire process from raw supplier data to optimized product lists across sales channels. According to the startup, the goal is to build the basic infrastructure for so-called agent-based commerce, where AI agents will increasingly be able to find, evaluate and purchase products on behalf of both businesses and consumers. Several major e-commerce players already use the platform to manage their product data. "We simply cannot enrich our products in the quality and scope we want - not with the volume coming in. Cernel solves that," says Peter Hestbæk, SVP Digital Sales & Marketing at Matas.

Cernel, an Aarhus-based AI startup automating e-commerce data management, has raised €4 million in seed funding, closing the round in just four weeks. Seed Capital led the investment, joined by serial entrepreneurs with experience building billion-dollar businesses. Founded in 2023 by four Aarhus University students who left their degrees, Cernel has built an AI platform that automates the entire product data pipeline for e-commerce companies. The system ingests supplier data, enriches it with verified attributes, generates multilingual descriptions, creates lifestyle imagery and formats content for various sales channels. The company claims its platform provides the "reasoning layer" for agentic commerce, where AI agents increasingly handle purchasing decisions. Cernel previously raised €765,000 in pre-seed funding and counts Matas, Hummel and Vero Moda among its clients.