Danish Startup Complir Raises €1.7M to Streamline Retail Compliance

Copenhagen-based startup Complir has secured €1.7 million in pre-seed funding to build AI-powered infrastructure that automates product compliance for retailers navigating an increasingly complex regulatory landscape. The round, led by Helsinki’s Vendep Capital, positions the young company to address what founders describe as one of retail’s most pressing operational bottlenecks.

The funding round attracted participation from Likeminded, Plug and Play, F-Log Ventures, and JHJ Seed Capital, alongside a roster of retail industry veterans. Notable angel investors include Kraen Østergaard Nielsen, former CEO of Coop Group, Per Thau, chairman of Coop Trading and GS1 board member, and Neil S.W. Murray, Solo GP at The Nordic Web Ventures.

The timing reflects mounting pressure on European retailers. The EU’s General Product Safety Regulation took effect December 13, 2024, imposing new documentation requirements on manufacturers, importers and distributors selling consumer products across the bloc. Customs authorities refused an average of 13 items per million products released in 2024 due to non-compliance or serious risks, according to European Commission data released in August.

For retailers with international ambitions, the compliance burden has become acute. Each market presents distinct labeling rules, testing protocols and documentation standards. Categories from textiles to toys to electronics face their own regulatory frameworks. The European retail ecosystem comprises 5.5 million companies, with 99% classified as small and medium-sized enterprises facing identical regulatory hurdles with far fewer resources than larger competitors.

“Retailers increasingly rely on international expansion to meet demand, but the regulatory burden of selling physical products across borders has become so complex that many simply give up,” said Gustav Bang, co-founder of Complir. “We saw businesses spending months and large budgets navigating compliance instead of focusing on growth.”

Complir was founded in 2024 by Bang, Tine Kühnel, Marc Kaa Brejner, and Rasmus Lind, who recognized an opportunity to apply artificial intelligence to a problem traditionally solved through manual processes and expensive consultancies. Bang, who previously served as Head of Denmark at Legora and holds a master’s degree in Digital Innovation and Management from the IT University of Copenhagen, brings a decade of startup experience. Kühnel, a designer from the Technical University of Denmark with backgrounds in both physical product design and digital platforms, serves as chief product officer. Brejner, an engineer who previously built large-scale system architecture for Danish authorities, rounds out the technical expertise.

The company’s platform connects fragmented product data across enterprise resource planning, product information management and product lifecycle management systems. Its AI agents analyze materials, supplier information and regulatory updates to surface market-access requirements in seconds. The system identifies which certifications, documentation and compliance steps retailers need across different jurisdictions, replacing what typically involves spreadsheets, external consultants and manual cross-checking.

Complir already works with major Nordic retailers across textiles, toys, cosmetics, electronics and home goods categories. The company established early knowledge partnerships with customers including Flying Tiger Copenhagen to understand compliance workflows before integrating artificial intelligence into the solution.

“We didn’t know enough at that point, so it was essential to learn the proper compliance model before we put AI into the equation,” Bang explained. “There’s no value in coming in and pretending you know everything.”

The market opportunity extends well beyond the Nordics. The global compliance software market reached approximately $33 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow at a compound annual rate exceeding 10% through 2031, driven by escalating regulatory complexity. Product compliance software specifically was valued at $1.36 billion in 2025 and is expected to reach $2.42 billion by 2034. Over 68% of companies in regulated industries adopted digital compliance tools in 2024 to manage growing complexity.

Vendep Capital, which recently closed an €80 million fourth fund focused on AI-era B2B software companies across the Nordics and Baltics, led the investment. The firm has backed notable software companies including AlphaSense, Hostaway, Leadfeeder and Happeo since launching in 2013, and now manages nearly €200 million in assets.

The fresh capital will accelerate Complir’s product development, expand coverage across product categories, and deepen integrations with the core systems retailers depend on. The company plans to broaden its reach to additional EU markets as it builds toward becoming what Bang calls “the default compliance infrastructure for global retail.”

The regulatory environment shows no signs of simplifying. The EU Customs Reform, currently under negotiation between the Council and European Parliament, will introduce a new EU Customs Authority and Data Hub designed to strengthen risk management and enhance cooperation between customs and market surveillance authorities. The European Accessibility Act takes effect June 28, 2025, requiring manufacturers and service providers to ensure product information and e-commerce services meet accessibility standards. The AI Act’s general provisions and prohibited practices take effect in 2025, with full implementation in 2026.

Against this backdrop, Complir positions itself as infrastructure rather than consulting service. The company faces competition primarily from manual compliance consultancies and legacy service providers, but claims no other platform offers automated, end-to-end compliance coverage across product categories and markets in a single system. Its domain-specific models combined with a structured knowledge engine interpret global product regulations in real time, allowing retailers to upload thousands of products and instantly understand requirements across jurisdictions.

With over 52% of consumer goods tested annually needing to meet environmental, health and safety standards across regions, and with more than 75,000 international regulations governing product safety, labeling and material composition, the manual approach to compliance has become untenable for growing retailers.

For European retailers grappling with the choice between international expansion and regulatory compliance, Complir offers a third option: automation that makes both possible. Whether that vision scales beyond the Nordics to fulfill Bang’s ambitions of becoming global retail’s compliance backbone remains to be seen. But with regulatory pressure intensifying and a well-connected investor base behind them, the company has positioned itself at the intersection of a clear market need and mounting legislative complexity.