Sunhat, a Cologne-based startup helping enterprises automatically validate and share ESG and vital non-financial data, today announced €9.2 million in Series A funding.
The round was led by CommerzVentures, with participation from existing investors Capnamic, EnBW New Ventures, xdeck, and WEPA Ventures.
“Enterprises don’t have a sustainability problem, they have a proof problem,” said Lukas Vogt, CEO, and Co-founder of Sunhat. “Companies are meeting standards, building quality systems, and hitting sustainability goals. But when someone asks for proof, finding it and making sure it checks all the boxes takes too long. Time-to-proof now decides who wins business and who doesn’t.”
Founded in 2022 by Lukas Vogt (CEO), Alexander Behr (CPO), and Ali Kamalizade (CTO), Sunhat’s AI platform helps companies like EnBW, Ingredion, Grundfos and Geberit turn ESG and compliance data into instant, verified, ready-to-send proof for customers, investors, lenders, and regulators.
Recent research shows that employees spend an average of 360 hours every year searching for documentation (OBRIZUM), while half of digital workers say they cannot easily locate what they need to do their jobs (Gartner). These search issues faced by teams are being further exacerbated as sustainability reporting and compliance becomes the norm in more and more regions.
The investment will enable Sunhat to:
- Continue growth momentum: The startup now serves thousands of users across over twenty countries. Sunhat reportedly achieved 10x growth over the last 15 months and is targeting another 10x over the next 15 months, with plans to reach 500 leading European, UK and North American enterprise customers.
- Scale the team & ‘Proof AI’: The startup will double their headcount in the next 12 months and develop their AI-native platform beyond ESG data to instantly validate compliance with 100+ global standards and certifications.
- Expand the Sunhat ecosystem: The German-based business plans to expand to 20 new integration partners across enterprise, ESG, and finance.
- Solve the ‘proof gap’: The proof gap is the time and work between what enterprises know internally and what they can report externally. For most enterprises, closing it takes weeks, costs deals, and delays critical decisions, meaning those who move faster win business and build trust
Today’s enterprises face constant demands from stakeholders for data and documentation – or proof – to back a company’s claims. Whether it’s policies, certificates, audit records, ESG data, or compliance records, they all require verifying, approving and presenting in the exact format each stakeholder requires.
Enterprises generate this information daily, and yet Sunhat says it often remains largely inaccessible for teams to find when they need it. Across contracts, financing, and supply chains, those enterprises that can deliver instant, verifiable proof are presented with a huge commercial opportunity.
The need for proof isn’t new, but its scale now overwhelms legacy systems. Customers demand supply chain verification, investors request ESG data, and rating agencies require compliance documentation.
Large enterprises receive and respond to thousands of requests every month, each with its own framework, format, and deadline. The volume and variation of these demands translates into inefficient manual work for teams.
“Too many companies lose deals just because they can’t move fast enough,” said Paul Morgenthaler, Managing Partner at CommerzVentures. “We backed Sunhat because it turns that pain into an advantage. Proof AI knows what proof is needed and has it ready, so teams can respond instantly and confidently. That speed wins business.”
Sunhat’s platform is powered by Proof AI, the intelligence engine trained on insights from thousands of successful questionnaires, audits, and assessments. It knows what counts as valid, verifiable proof for leading management standards (e.g. ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001), disclosure frameworks (e.g. CDP, CSRD), and ESG ratings.
It maps those requirements to approved information enterprise customers already hold and allegedly keeps learning with every request, making the rules and checklists sharper over time.
Proof AI Agents connect to the systems enterprises already use, from SharePoint and other core business platforms to specialized ESG, EHS, and quality management tools. They capture new information the moment it appears, check for recency and completeness, and alert owners before anything expires or becomes invalid.
“Someone on our commercial team sent us a very lengthy customer sustainability questionnaire, indicating that they needed it back in 48 hours to submit as part of the bid process for new business,” said Brian Nash, Vice President of Corporate Sustainability at Ingredion, a Fortune 500 global ingredient solutions provider. “We didn’t want to miss the deadline, as this was an opportunity to expand business with this customer. Previously, this would have been a challenging timeline for my team. But with Sunhat, we were able to complete the questionnaire in a few hours and have the confidence to know that our responses were accurate, as we had already verified them in the platform.”
