Yet many manufacturers remain stuck with outdated ERP systems that were never built for their pace or precision. Bonx, a French startup building operational software for European industry, is changing that. 

Today, the company announced an $8.6 million seed round led by 9900 Capital, with participation from Kima Ventures, Purple, OSS Ventures, and Dynamo Ventures.

Founded in 2022 by Alexandre Barroux and Rémi Beges within OSS Ventures, Bonx is a modern ERP platform purpose-built for manufacturing. 

By combining no-code configuration, advanced AI capabilities and rapid deployment, the company enables mid-market manufacturers to digitise operations in weeks, not years. 

Bonx integrates seamlessly into existing environments, offering visibility and control across production, logistics, procurement, and quality, without replacing core finance or CRM systems. 

The platform is already being used by a growing number of French, Italian and Spanish manufacturers, including suppliers to Décathlon and emerging brands like French Bloom.

“Our mission remains clear: empower manufacturers to simplify and take control of their operations through technology that adapts to their precise needs,” said Alexandre Barroux, CEO of Bonx. 

“This funding propels us into our next phase – becoming Europe’s definitive ERP leader for mid-sized manufacturers, expanding our successful model from France into new key markets, while scaling in Italy and Spain.”

Unlike traditional ERP deployments, which often drag on for months or years and require expensive consultants, Bonx is designed to go live fast and evolve with the shop floor. 

Customers report full rollouts in as little as three to ten weeks, along with measurable improvements in traceability, purchasing workflows, and inventory coordination. 

The software’s modular, visual interface makes it intuitive for operators and supply chain teams – not just IT departments – and its adaptability means factories can shape the system to fit their actual processes, not the other way around.

The urgency is real. Across France, Germany, Italy, and Spain, mid-sized manufacturers are facing growing technical and operational complexity. Shifting regulations, fragmented supplier networks, and ambitious sustainability targets are all increasing the pressure to modernise. 

Yet many of the ERP platforms still in use across Europe were built for a different era – rigid, opaque, and unable to keep up with evolving demands. Even basic changes to workflows often require custom development. 

As a result, too many industrial teams are still managing high-stakes operations in spreadsheets, or locked into systems that were never designed for speed or interoperability.

Bonx steps into this gap with a platform built precisely for the complexity of modern European industry, allowing manufacturers to gain operational clarity fast without ripping out existing systems. 

Their company reflects a broader shift in how Europe’s industrial backbone is being rebuilt – not just with machines, but with software that understands how production actually runs.

“By focusing exclusively on manufacturing and supply-chain operations, we’ve built Bonx to integrate effortlessly with existing tools, particularly general ledgers and CRM solutions that our customers already rely on and love,” said Rémi Beges, CTO of Bonx. 

“Manufacturers don’t have to replace the systems they’re accustomed to; Bonx complements and enhances their stack and acts as their operational backbone.”

Investor appetite mirrors the urgency playing out on factory floors. “Bonx is redefining the ERP landscape by combining extraordinary implementation speeds with genuinely impactful AI-driven capabilities, driving enormous efficiencies within an industry plagued by legacy software,” commented Juliette Sylvain, Principal at 9900 Capital.

“We are excited to support Bonx as it sets a new industry standard and scales across Europe.”

With this new funding, Bonx will grow its team, deepen its product, and scale in Italy and Spain, two of Europe’s most important manufacturing economies, where Bonx is already present. 

The company sees clear demand for fast, modern ERP solutions that respect the way factories already work, while unlocking smarter, more connected operations. 

Over time, Bonx aims to become the foundational layer for industrial execution across the continent, offering a new kind of digital infrastructure that scales with production, not against it.

In a world marked by extreme disruptions and growing fragmentation, the need for intelligent connectivity has never been more critical.

So says Jaap Scholten, COO at eNetworks, an internet service provider (ISP), network specialist and a Datacentrix company, and head of Group Hybrid ICT Strategy at Datacentrix, who notes that connectivity is no longer a standalone, isolated item.

“Today, connectivity has become a conduit to experiences and services, and at the same time, also a gateway to security breaches. The blending of networking and security has therefore become of paramount importance. Networking is now the facilitator, the detector and the first responder to security attacks.”

The role of data centres in facilitating connectivity

Scholten outlines the importance of network peering to significantly improve the user experience, namely the interconnecting of two or more networks at a mutual point to exchange internet traffic directly; content delivery networks (CDNs), which are geographically distributed networks of proxy servers located in multiple centres, with the goal of providing high content availability and speed; and the role of data centres in concentrating ultra-low-latency interconnectivity.

“We can’t put enough fibre in the ground quickly enough to keep up with our customers’ demands for speed and bandwidth,” he explains. “And so, in response, when we design networks today, we advise our clients to place their previous on-premises infrastructure within a data centre. Here, we find very short fibres that are super-fast, with multi-Gigabyte speeds and ultra-low latency, and which are highly reliable – everything inside a data centre is highly controlled.

“The ecosystem inside a data centre provides access to cloud services, CDNs, financial services, ERP, and AI-as-a-service – to name but few options available. We are then able to configure all our clients’ branches, including the head office, to act like a remote site – as long as they have connectivity to a data centre which is constantly available. This means that if the head office, which previously would have hosted all the organisation’s IT services on its premises, goes down, the branches are not affected by the head office outage and are still able to carry on with business as usual.”

The importance of peering

Scholten notes that during the previous dial-up era of connectivity, internet traffic in South Africa between Cape Town and Johannesburg went via London and was expensive and latent.

With the building of the first internet exchange in Johannesburg in 1996, named JINX (Johannesburg Internet Exchange), access to content via this multi-provider peering point meant that the local user experience was vastly improved.

“The peering traffic inside the data centre is important,” he says. “Today, we estimate that between 70 and 75 percent of local traffic is handled between local peering networks, and access to peering is multi-Gigabyte, which means that the user experience is vastly improved. CDNs hand off content, that is web traffic, at the closest point to where it’s being consumed. For example, most popular YouTube content is served out of Johannesburg, and if your ISP is significant, it will carry a local copy of this content.

“When we look at the statistics of some of the e-commerce sites that eNetworks hosts and facilitates, 90 percent of their traffic is transferred on CDNs hosted in KwaZulu-Natal, the Western Cape and Gauteng. Apart from enhancing the user experience, this also means that the root server is generating only 10 percent of this content, which presents a significantly smaller attack surface from a security perspective. Thus, CDNs, data centres and peering traffic play a significant role in improved local connectivity.”

With regards to sovereignty, Scholten believes that the South African market is now mature enough for organisations to host data and consume cloud and security services within the borders of this country.

“Today, we can move data around, back it up and send to customers without needing to leave the borders of South Africa,” he clarifies. “In addition, into the SADC region and beyond, we have partners to provide us with access routes up the east and west coasts of Africa.”

Concludes Scholten:

“Your connectivity determines your user experience, yet every link in the chain has to be optimised and just right, otherwise the user experience suffers. Maximising new components of connectivity will boost competitive vitality and organisational adaptability.”

eNetworks is ranked as one of the top 10 most peered ISPs in South Africa, well known for its network expertise and the provision of Internet access, security and email systems.

He has held the position of Country Manager for Infobip Nigeria along with his multi-varied past roles in other organisations as; Assistant General Manager (Nigeria) at CWG plc, Software Services Sales Leader & Cloud Specialist (Central and West Africa) for IBM, and Executive Director Sales (West Africa) for BCX.

Olatayo Ladipo-Ajai, in this interview with TechEconomy, speaks to challenges many retail organisations face today and how they can leverage the period of Black Friday to win-back old customers or acquire new ones. Is there how can Infobip help your organisation? Well, Mr. Ladipo-Ajai has the answer:

What were Infobip’s major findings during the COVID era? What are some of the actions taken by various companies that are still practiced today, based on the impact of COVID.

When talking specifically about organisations that are retail and/or e-commerce focused, the pandemic has changed the way that we do business. Looking at this sector of businesses, you see that many of them have had to enhance their functionalities and features on the customer engagement channels/platforms, solidifying the need to look for ways to make their customers more comfortable.

The pandemic has also enabled businesses to look for ways to become more competitive in the customer experience arena and to meet customers’ online shopping expectations since the pandemic restricted shopping in physical stores.

Furthermore, another finding relates to an increase in consumers moving towards online shopping, and subsequently needing products to be delivered directly to their homes.

The retailers that didn’t have an online presence prior to the pandemic, such as supermarkets that were predominantly dependent on physical foot traffic, had to then create ways for customers to make purchases without having to physically visit their store.

As a result, some stores in Nigeria started using media channels, such as WhatsApp, to communicate with their customers.

The customer can simply send their shopping request via WhatsApp, by sending a list and pictures of what they want to buy. Should the customer need to contact a customer care agent, they can also communicate their queries via this platform too. It’s as simple as that.

In a nutshell, what the pandemic has proven to the retail sector is that organisations have to have an online presence alongside their physical presence in order to remain relevant and competitive.

How can retailers stay ahead of the curve without losing out in the market?

This requires a shift in mindset in realizing the customers’ position in the retail ecosystem. Traditionally, customers were at the helm of either the business owner or subscription platform. In today’s times, the customer is king, and has the power to dictate who he or she buys from, especially since we live in a highly competitive market, surrounded by choice.

The introduction of certain features such as ‘click-to-buy’ speaks to the ‘customer is king’ ideology, showcasing that retailers are having to fight more avidly for customers’ attention.

Manufacturers and retailers therefore have to look for ways in which they can help the customer make decisions faster and with ease, try enticing their purchase. At the end of the day, the customer is looking for a seamless purchase process.

Click-to-buy, as an example, requires the customer to pre-register their payment details on a specific platform or on the retailer’s website, so that the customer can select an item and pay for it seamlessly in a matter of moments.

This eliminates the customer having to input their payment details each time they are looking to make a purchase, and therefore eliminates them potentially abandoning their cart.

Click-to-buy is a classic customer-centric feature that allows customers to spend less time thinking about a purchase. This in turn has a positive impact on customer engagement, the customer experience and the overall customer psychology attached to the process.

This shopping feature makes purchasing so easy and efficient that it can even promote impulsive purchases – something which retailers certainly won’t complain about.

Aside from being entirely customer-conscious, another way for retailers to stay ahead of the curve is to continuously innovate, and work towards constantly improving the customers’ experience and by proving them with the right tools that enable them to make faster purchasing decisions which in turn should lead to a quick check out process.

How has Infobip helped banks like Zenith in their customer acquisition quest, bringing it down to how retailers can attract buyers to their site especially in Black Friday space?

We can look at this situation twofold: firstly, looking how retailers can engage customers better, and secondly, ensuring that customers actually buy from them. At the end of the day, retailers’ primary focus is on ensuring that customers buy, and that they do so repeatedly.

It is crucial to have a communications strategy that encompasses multiple customer engagement touchpoints, and customers need to have a choice on which communication platform they want to be engaged on. So, retailers have to be available via phone, website, a mobile app (if relevant), WhatsApp and other social media platforms.

Organisations now need to understand that because the customer is in the centre of this engagement process, the communication structure must be a complete cycle. That means that the communication needs to be bi-directional so that the organisation can in turn communicate with the customers as well. Ultimately, there must be an avenue for a conversation exchange.

Retailers also need to ensure that their social media channels are active, as this can be a tool to help attract customer to your website or platform.

Customer feedback and reviews/ratings are another powerful means to attract new customers to a business’ website, as potential customers will often look to the experience of an existing customer before deciding to purchase.

To enhance the customer experience, retailers need to understand how to suggest to customers what other customers purchased while they were on your site. This will encourage them to shop more by showcasing a range of products that complement one other.

While the abovementioned features enhance the customer experience, it’s the customer engagement that truly helps attract potential buyers to your shopping portal. When potential customers hear about the seamless and efficient shopping experience on a retailer’s site alongside the great customer service, they are tempted to visit the site for themselves. Word of mouth remains an incredibly powerful marketing tool.

On the topic of Black Friday, retailers need to ‘jump on the bandwagon’ or risk being left behind. To entice customers to shop, retailers can employ various tactics such as supplying free items to complement a purchase, supplying free delivery of items, or else having an uncomplicated return policy to accommodate shoppers who may end up with buyer’s remorse. Elements like this can set a retailer apart from their competition.

What can retailers do to drive sustainability? What kind of services/solutions can Infobip help them?

Since COVID-19, many Nigerians have had to change their mindset in terms of how they buy. Prior to the pandemic, many Nigerians typically wouldn’t buy items online without seeing it, yet today, shopping habits have changed drastically and many Nigerians are prioritising online shopping, which has led to the rise of ecommerce and subsequent delivery platforms.

Interestingly, there’s now more trust in the online retail ecosystem.

In order to look at what’s required to help optimise our customers’ platforms or websites, there are a multitude of engagement strategies to employ, especially when Black Friday is on the horizon. I’ve touched on a few strategies earlier, but just to recap: retailers need a sound communications strategy, they need to fully understand their market and customers, and they need to be able to engage the customer (if need be) on their preferred platform.

When talking about Black Friday, the question on everyone’s mind is: how do I sell? For starters, one way to lose out on sales is with a website crash, so this needs to a consideration.

As a retailer, does your website have sound security, adequate bandwidth, and a strong capability to handle the high volumes of traffic?

Furthermore, to entice Black Friday shoppers to your online store, retailers need to heighten their social media presence. But, more than that, what is your social media strategy? Are you using your social channels as an informative platform? Or are you communicating deals or specials? Will you be posting banners, and what happens if a customer clicks on the banner – will it take them to a buying page? These are all considerations that retailers need to take into account.

Technology has enabled businesses to optimise their website or retail platforms and to ensure that there’s a golden thread between the various purchase channels. For example, there’s a good chance that a customer may call your contact centre and ask about a particular deal in your Black Friday promo page that sits on your website. So, when the customer calls, are they able to make a payment there and then, or be sent automatically to a purchase page?

These are all examples of technologies that can help drive sales for retail businesses, and it’s what gives retailers  or retailers an edge. It certainly sets them apart from the other organisations that just send out adverts without follow up or additional information to entice customers to close a sale.

At Infobip, our products offer a 360-degree solution to ensure that our customers’ objectives are achieved. It is essential that businesses adopt an omnichannel strategy that ties everything together, ensuring that the customer is served faster and that they can make decisions easily across any of the communications platforms on offer.

If you want to talk to companies in terms of incentives, what advise would you share with businesses or retailers to give to their customers?

In terms of incentives, there’s no limit to what can be done, however, it depends on what your business is all about. If your business is reliant on traffic to your website via the likes of YouTube, Facebook, and other social media platforms, it would make sense to offer subsidised data for your customers, because you ultimately want them to consume your adverts/content.

As a retail organisation, for a period like Black Friday, I touched on the incentives that e-tailers can employ. Furthermore, businesses can include engaging features on their platforms, for example, we have the Web RTC, like a web video. This is a situation where your website can offer a video call that is free and when your customers want to talk to someone, a video pops up and they can engage and ask questions.

There’s also Request for Calls, you can just click a button and you get a call from a customer care centre. Everything connects seamlessly and the call is toll-free.

There are also an alerts feature used by websites whereby a customer clicks on the button and requests to be alerted when a particular product becomes available. The organisation then calls the customer when the product is in stock.

For Infobip, do you have solutions that are tailored to SMEs and Startups, as some can’t afford expensive solutions?

Aside from servicing enterprise businesses in Nigeria, we carry a lot of communication traffic for SMEs and startups, especially tech startups.

Interestingly, at least 90% of the biggest e-commerce platforms in Nigeria and West Africa run a large portion of their traffic on Infobip’s platforms. This includes emails, SMS, voicemails, among others.

We also offer a range of self-service products, which are not necessarily structured to big corporate strategies. Small organisations can easily use their credit or debit cards to make payment and ship out their products to customers.

Are payments for your services receivable in Naira?

Infobip is a Nigerian company, and we don’t operate through third parties. We are registered here and collect payment in Naira.

In terms of the Metaverse and the future of customer experience, do you see a shift happening very soon, especially in this market, to improve customer experience?

Considering the direction that Nigeria is moving in, we are very aligned with global technology. However, it’s important to note that there are two segments of Nigeria: there’s the digitally-aware economy of Nigeria, and the growing/yet to be included economy of Nigeria. That is where the potential lies, and as Nigeria begins to build that awareness, you will see a bigger market.

Currently, about 20% of the population is in the digitally-aware scope. So, in terms of the solutions pertaining to the metaverse, virtual reality, AI and others, organisations need to give customers a more inclusive and entrenched experience.

Organisations that will begin to use these tools to their advantage will reap the rewards. While there is a wealth of opportunity in Africa, we are still struggling with infrastructural challenges such as data and bandwidth issues.

Organisations that are interested in going that route can start with baby steps, and look at more tailored solutions, in order to provide the customers with a better experience.

What are you bringing on board for this Black Friday?

One of the key things we want our customer to take advantage of is our platform – the fact that it is a single paying dashboard solution that allows you to orchestrate across all your channels.

A lot of customers don’t know that the same channel they’re routing their SMS is the same channel they can allocate to a customer care consultant, create a chatbot for their website or mobile app. They can manage comments, responses, etc., all on one platform.

Another thing that would interest customers is that our platform is integratable into their CRM, ERP and other systems.

They can inter-relate information across different software applications that they use within their business and into Infobip’s platform.

We also offer a section where customers can engage with our customer experience consultants to advise them on the services. We are proud to mention that we are giving out free customer experience services to our big customers to guide them on purchasing products.

SaaSify is a growing term in the technology industry that refers to the process of converting existing software into a software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering.

It is a shift from software in a box to metered SaaS.  It is all about delivering an existing software application, such as a desktop application or on-premises software, to customers as a cloud-based service. Why SaaSify ? Gartner predicts cloud spending will likely exceed 45% of all enterprise IT spending by 2026.

The first step in SaaSifying an existing software application is to assess the software’s current architecture and design. This includes assessing both the underlying infrastructure, such as servers and databases, and the application itself and ensuring it’s fit for the cloud. 

A clear picture of the existing software, changes are required to convert it to a SaaS offering and moreso, what value a cloud-based version of the solution brings. If fit, the solution is not only moved to the cloud, but modernised on the cloud.  Paradigms for migration include efficiency –  measurable service level indices, objectives and agreements met, performance, reliability etc.

After the software has been moved to the cloud, the application must be re-architected to take advantage of the cloud’s scalability, reliability, and security.

Making changes to the application stack, such as containerising the app to make it more portable, or using serverless technologies to reduce cost and improve scalability, may be great motivation. Additionally, embedded AI, security, or any other motivations must be measurable and achieved at indices better than before.

It is crucial to guarantee that users can access and use the programme with ease after it has been redesigned. To do this, a self-service portal that allows users to register for the service and manage their accounts must be established. In addition, the application needs to be simple to integrate with other platforms and systems, including analytics tools, CRM, and marketing automation.

“SaaSification” is an effective strategy for companies seeking to drive growth and innovation.

Companies can benefit from the cloud’s scalability, reliability, and security by converting existing software into a SaaS offering. Furthermore, “SaaSification” enables businesses to reach new customers and expand their revenue streams especially through cloud marketplace sales. According to a recent report, the global SaaS market will grow at a 19.5% CAGR between 2020 and 2025. The increasing adoption of cloud services and the growing demand for software-as-a-service offerings are driving this rapid growth. Furthermore, “SaaSification” has proven to be especially beneficial for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) looking to disrupt and grow than age-bent on nerd-IT.  Technology should be a means and not an end by itself.

Several businesses have “SaaSified” to promote growth, evident with a growing SaaS market of USD253B by 2023. 

In conclusion, “SaaSification” is a potent tool for companies with a growth mindset.

By transforming current software into a SaaS product, businesses may take advantage of the scalability, reliability, and security of the cloud. “SaaSification” additionally gives companies the chance to reach out to new clients and increase their revenue. It is becoming a more crucial consideration for businesses as a means of maintaining competitiveness and fostering growth as the global SaaS market continues to grow exponentially. 

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About the writer:

Uche Nwaukwa

Uche Nwaukwa is a DevOps, SRE, and Senior Cloud Architect with 15+ years of experience having played strategic roles in global fintech, banks, ISVs, telecommunications, and OEMs including Microsoft, IBM, and Google. He has been privileged to advise execs and techies alike on architecture best practices in the financial services industry, dominantly.  He has served as an Enterprise Architect and also, a CTO driving bespoke architectures to meet stringent SLOs and SLAs. Uche is an avid learner, a father, and a husband, and likes to relax with a good chess game and cycling.