London, 26 October 2026 — Epoch, the first-mile supply chain intelligence platform, has today launched a self-serve product that automates compliance for small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs), starting with the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR)*. The launch follows the close of a $4.25M seed round led by Burnt Island Ventures and Sand River, bringing Epoch's total funding to $6.26M.

Rather than relying solely on supplier questionnaires, Epoch uses geospatial AI and agentic research to map the first mile of a supply chain: the farms, plantations and mines where raw materials originate. Companies can see independently where their goods come from, and focus supplier outreach where it is genuinely needed.

Reporting requirements on supply chains have increased significantly in recent years, and more regulations are on the way. For SMBs, one of the most pressing is the EUDR. The EUDR applies to large and medium operators from 30 December 2026, and to most micro and small operators from 30 June 2027. From those dates, companies of every size must show where their raw materials were produced, yet most suppliers cannot provide this. Smallholders growing cocoa, coffee and rubber rarely hold plot-level coordinates, and countries including China and Indonesia now restrict what companies may share, even with their own customers abroad.

SMBs are particularly exposed to the risk of non-compliance. They lack the purchasing power of larger operators, making them more vulnerable to supplier questionnaires going unanswered.

Epoch's answer is to analyse a supply chain once and use the results across multiple regulatory requirements. As the number of supply chain regulations grows, sending suppliers a fresh questionnaire for each regulation becomes harder to sustain. A single first-mile analysis produces evidence that serves the EUDR today and can also be tailored to new regulations as they arrive, so the burden no longer falls on suppliers alone.

"Supply chain compliance has been built on questionnaires, audits and certifications, and that toolkit is incomplete: regulations keep multiplying while suppliers increasingly can't, or aren't allowed to answer," said Jinal Surti, co-founder and CEO of Epoch. "We've built a compliance solution for the AI era. One sweep across a supply chain, using geospatial AI and agentic research, produces evidence that can be packaged for every regulation a company faces, including the ones not written yet. Enterprises get it inside the platforms they already run, and from today on, so does any SMB."

*The EU Deforestation Regulation requires companies placing cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soya or wood products on the EU market to prove they are deforestation-free and legally produced, traced to the plot where the commodity was grown, and covered by a Due Diligence Statement.

By enabling enhanced visibility of supply chains Epoch also allows businesses to manage these supply chains more proactively creating positive outcomes both for supply chain resilience and the health of the environments from which products are sourced.

Self-serve compliance for SMBs

Companies can start with whatever supplier information they already hold, even a simple list of supplier names. Compliance teams can work in Epoch's self-serve platform, or through AI assistants they already use, such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini, to clean their data and ask questions about risk in plain language. Sensitive business information stays private within their own environment.

Epoch then does the rest, without asking suppliers for plot data. It locates supplier facilities, identifies the plots where goods are produced, and assesses deforestation and legality risk. The result is a Due Diligence Statement, with every finding cited, ready to submit to the EU Information System (TRACES).

Enterprise access through partner platforms

Larger companies can use Epoch inside the software they already run. Epoch has signed partnerships with Altana, Assent, Resilinc and 3E, each of which has integrated Epoch or is in the process of doing so. Together they give more than 30,000 enterprises access to first-mile data without changing systems. Epoch supplies the data; the partner platform handles the workflow. Over the past six months, Epoch has screened more than 12,000 suppliers for enterprise customers.

What partners say

"European importers need to know not just who their suppliers are, but where their goods actually come from. Altana is the AI network for global trade, where eight of the world's ten largest logistics providers, Fortune 1000 companies and their suppliers, and governments work together. Epoch's first-mile intelligence is helping extend our network to the source, so our customers can meet EUDR and CBAM and keep their products trade-ready for Europe." — Evan Smith, CEO and Co-Founder, Altana

"Adding AI-enabled first-mile intelligence to the Assent Network with Epoch helps our customers and suppliers better identify where risk may be concentrated, spot gaps in their data and build visibility into their supply chain across multiple tiers. We want to equip our customers with the most complete product intelligence network to allow them to make better informed decisions based on a reusable data foundation they can trust, giving them confidence they are meeting their regulatory and compliance requirements in the markets they serve. Our partnership with Epoch is one of many ways we are helping them do that." — Catherine Cormier, Chief Innovation Officer, Assent

"Resilinc's platform works hand-in-hand with Epoch's verified first-mile data to help our customers identify exposure, prioritize supplier actions and streamline due diligence submission, creating a foundation for evolving EU compliance requirements and more." — Ranjit Jose, Head of Product and Partner Marketing, Resilinc

"Combining Epoch's first-mile intelligence with 3E's breadth of regulatory content enables our customers to move beyond data collection to power full-scale compliance strategy across regulations, including EUDR." — Meredith Bearden, Managing Director, Supply Chain and Sustainability, 3E

Customers of each platform can ask their account manager about enabling Epoch.

Growing the team

Jinal Surti and William Ouellette (Co-founder and CTO) built the product on their deep technical skills. Drawing on their extensive experience of growing businesses, the Epoch team has built out its commercial capability across North America and EMEA. Dave Shanteler has joined as Head of Partnerships, Mario Romero Garoz leads EMEA Sales, and Tony Dawson leads North American Sales.

Funding

The $4.25M seed round was led by Burnt Island Ventures and Sand River, and brings the total Epoch has raised to $6.26M. Christine Boyle, Partner at Burnt Island Ventures, has joined Epoch's board. The funding will go into product, infrastructure and the commercial team.

"Large companies rely on their supply chains to operate their businesses, and they are often operating in the dark as to the local conditions around drought, flood, and forest health. The Epoch platform leverages AI, earth observation data and proprietary models to enable visibility into risk mitigation, and compliance. Epoch is a team of 14 that operates like a team of 140, punching way above their weight! It's a transformative approach to managing supply chain risk and compliance." — Christine Boyle, Partner, Burnt Island Ventures

"A team of extraordinary capability and experience reinforces our belief that Epoch is best placed to become the single source of truth for the first mile. Compliance data becomes business intelligence and allows for healthier and more robust supply chains." — Greg Robson, Partner, Sand River

About Epoch

Epoch is a first-mile intelligence platform enabling supply chains to be more resilient, transparent and sustainable. Powered by geospatial AI models, agentic research, over a billion training data points and earth-scale processing infrastructure, Epoch helps corporations gain visibility into the "first mile" of their supply chains and generate compliance-ready data on global regulations without solely relying on supplier questionnaires. Epoch's data is used by NGOs, regulators and producers, and is available to more than 30,000 corporates and financial institutions through its integrations with the leading supply chain platforms.

Media contact

Julia Pavlova, Head of Growth Marketing, julia@epoch.blue