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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Future of Grocery

Misfits Market Raises $200M Series C, Will Expand into Proteins

Misfits Market, an online marketplace that sells imperfect foods at a discount, announced today that it has raised a $200 million Series C round of funding. According to a press release shared with The Spoon, the round was co-led by Accel and D1 Capital, with participation by existing investors including Valor Equity Partners, Greenoaks Capital, Sound Ventures, and Third Kind Ventures. This brings the total amount raised by Misfits to $301.5 million.

Misfits Market started out selling subscriptions to boxes of “ugly” produce back in 2018. This allowed customers to buy misshapen but perfectly edible fruits and vegetables at a discount while rescuing food from going to waste. Since then, Misfits has expanded to offer a wide range of other imperfect pantry and packaged items that might otherwise be discarded. These include products with misprinted labels and products that are shipped to the wrong location.

The global pandemic actually created a number of new opportunities for Misftits Market last year. With stadiums, schools, restaurants and more shut down, existing supply chains needed to re-direct their products to new customers. For example, with movie theaters closed, there was a glut of corn for popcorn that Misfits could purchase and sell at a discount to its customers.

Additionally, Misfits has benefited from the pandemic-induced boom in online grocery shopping as customers limited their trips to physical stores. Abhi Ramesh, Founder & CEO of Misfits Market told me by phone last week that his company grew 5x in scale last year.

With its new funding, Ramesh is hitting the gas to accelerate Misfits’ growth. The company opened a new 250,000 sq. ft. headquarters in New Jersey and was able to double its order capacity. And while Misfits is predominantly available in the Eastern U.S. right now, it will be expanding to the West Coast with a new facility in Utah. One in the Pacific Northwest will follow after that.

Misfits is also expanding its grocery categories with the addition of protein. Most customers might blanche at the thought of “imperfect meat,” but Ramesh explained to me that there is a lot of excess in the protein supply chain as well. With something like salmon, for instance, there are often 3 oz portions leftover from trimming fillets. Misfits can bundle those leftovers and sell them at a discount.

Misfits Market’s funding is also coming during a time of big investment in grocery related startups that are aiming to upend our traditional notions of food retail. A number of smaller, delivery-only grocery stores like Fridge no More and Gorillas are popping up around the world, making groceries something more akin to a utility. Online grocer Weee! is leading the way by focusing on selling Asian and Hispanic foods. And retail infrastructure startups like Shelf Engine and Trax are developing tech to re-invent how store inventory is managed.

Most relevant to Misfits, however, is its main rival, Imperfect Foods, which has also expanded from ugly produce to become more of a full online grocer that taps into existing supply chain deficiencies. Imperfect raised a $110 million Series D round in February, which means we can probably expect a marketing blitz from both companies this year.

The question over both Misfits and Imperfect at this point however is what happens post-pandemic? Will people still want to order groceries online when they can just go to their local store? Ramesh said he isn’t too concerned about that. “Yes, there will be some sort of reversion to the mean,” Ramesh told me. But because his company is offering discounts and value on products people already buy, his customers will continue to shop with Misfits.

Egypt: Grocery Delivery Service Appetito Raises $450K Seed Round

Cairo-based grocery delivery service Appetito has raised a $450,000 Seed round of funding, reports Business Africa Online. Ahmed Al Alola and a group of Saudi Angel investors led the round along with Afropreneurs Fund, with participation from Jeda Capital.

Formed in March of 2020, Appetito originally started out with a chain of delivery-only (or “dark”) grocery stores that offered next-day and pre-scheduled grocery delivery service. The company recently pivoted to a more on-demand model, offering delivery of 1,000 SKUs in 60 minutes or less to certain parts of Cairo.

Appetito’s funding is the first we’ve covered for an Africa-based grocery startup this year, but it is certainly part of a larger trend we’ve been following. Grocery-related startups (grocery delivery in particular) are hot with investors all over the world right now.

In Europe, Gorillas, Getir, and Glovo have each raised nine-digit funding rounds for their particular fast grocery delivery services. In the U.S. goPuff raised $1.5 billion to scale out its chain of dark convenience stores. And in China, grocery app Xingsheng Youxuan raised $2 billion and Nice Tuan raised $750 million

A big reason for the boost in grocery app funding is the global pandemic, which pushed a record number of people into grocery e-commerce. With various lockdowns enforced in different parts of the world throughout 2020, people limited trips outside their homes. Grocery apps and delivery services became a way to help cut down on human-to-human interaction when getting food.

As vaccinations continue to roll out in different countries, We will have to wait and see if consumers keep up with the online grocery or return once again to stores in-person. One thing is for sure, post-pandemic, there will be a lot more grocery delivery options for people than ever before.

For its part, Appetito said it will use its new funding to expand across Egypt and beyond.

Ocado Invests £10M in Oxbotica to Develop Self-Driving Vehicles

UK-based grocer Ocado announced today that it has invested £10 million (~$13.8M USD) in autonomous vehicle (and fellow UK) company Oxbotica. The investment is part of an broader, multi-year deal to develop self-driving hardware and software.

For Ocado, autonomous vehicle tech could have a number of uses, from self-driving warehouse vehicles to delivery vans to smaller autonomous robots.

That Ocado bought Oxbotica to bring autonomy further up and down its tech stack makes a lot of sense. The grocer already makes autonomous smart warehouses filled with robots zipping along grids assembling items for grocery orders. It’s natural to extend that autonomy throughout its warehouses and into delivery vehicles. It’s easy to envision robots picking and packing grocery orders, which are then handed off to warehouse robot that places it in a self-driving delivery van that drives off to a customer’s house.

Ocado has also shown that it’s not shy about spending money on autonomous systems. Last year purchased Kindred Systems and Haddington Dynamics to enhance its robotics capabilities. And prior to that it led the $9 million Seed round in cafeteria robot company Karakuri.

Ocado’s investment in Oxbotica actually caps off what has been a big week for autonomous vehicles. Udelv announced its new self-driving Transporter platform. Domino’s tapped Nuro to make autonomous pizza deliveries in Houston, Texas. And Walmart announced it had invested in self-driving startup, Cruise.

It’s also been a big news week for Ocado. The company’s technology powers Kroger’s Customer Fulfillment Centers, the first of which opened up in Monroe, Ohio this week. For its part, Kroger has dabbled in self-driving delivery before through a partnership with Nuro.

If you want to learn more about robotics in grocery, be sure to attend ArticulATE, our food automation virtual summit happening on May 18. There will be a number of autonomous vehicle companies as well as Karakuri speaking!

Kroger Officially Launches its First Robotic Customer Fulfillment Center

Grocery giant Kroger officially opened the first of its automated Customer Fulfillment Centers today in Monroe, Ohio, just north of Cincinnatti. Kroger had soft-opened the facility at the beginning of March, but today marks it’s official debut.

The Monroe CFC is 375,000 square feet and is powered by Ocado‘s automation technology. The CFC features 1,000 robots scurrying around carrying food items on giant 3D grids, managed by a proprietary air-traffic control system. When an order comes in, the robots assemble the items, which are bagged and placed in a temperature-controlled van and sent out for delivery. The CFC currently services a 90-mile radius from the hub location, though that radius will increase as spokes are set up that can extend that reach.

Kroger first announced its automated CFC initiative back in 2018, well before the pandemic pushed record numbers of people into grocery e-commerce and delivery. The opening of Kroger’s first CFC couldn’t have come at a better time for the company. In a press announcement released today, Kroger said that 2020 saw its e-commerce business scale to more than $10 billion with a record digital sales increase of 116 percent.

Online grocery shopping is predicted to hit $250 billion by 2025, taking up 21.5 percent of total grocery sales. As such, the entire grocery sector has been adapting to this e-commerce shift. Stalwarts like Kroger, Alberstons and Walmart have all invested heavily in automation and order fulfillment. Amazon is building out its own chain of physical grocery stores. And there has been a massive funding spree since the start of the year on grocery related startups.

The Monroe CFC is just the first such facility Kroger is opening. The company says the next CFC to open will be in Groveland, Florida this spring. After that, the company will open CFCs in Atlanta, Georgia; Dallas, Texas; Frederick, Maryland; Phoenix, Arizona; Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin; Romulus, Michigan; and centers in the Pacific Northwest and West regions.

If you are interested in the future of grocery automation, be sure to attend ArticulATE, our virtual food robotics summit on May 18!

Udelv Launches New “Transporter” Delivery Vehicle, Will Use Mobileye’s Self-Driving Tech

Self-driving delivery startup Udelv announced today that it is launching a new “Transporter” vehicle that will use autonomous driving technology from Mobileye, an Intel company.

The new Transporter marks a couple of shifts for Udelv. First, the Transporter abandons the company’s traditional cargo delivery van form factor in favor of a more pod-like “skateboard” vehicle. The box shape is larger than the Nuro pod, and there is no longer space for a driver. Details such as range weren’t provided, but the Transporter is capable of traveling at 65 mph.

In addition to a new shape, Udelv is also shifting strategy by licensing out the self-driving technology from Mobileye. Up until this point, Udelv had been developing its own autonomous driving system. Mobileye Drive has EyeQTM SoC-based L4 compute, sensors and software and Mobileye’s Road Experience Management AV mapping solution. The Transporters will be capable of Level 4 self-driving, point-to-point operation. Udelv’s teleoperation system will allow the vehicles to be manually controlled for more complex situations such as parking lots, loading zones, apartment complexes and private roads.

One thing the new Transporters don’t have is temperature-controlled cargo bays. When asked about that during a live video press conference last week, Udelv Co-Founder and CEO Daniel Laury said that the company decided to forego refrigeration and temperature control to save on battery power. He also said that Udelv’s existing cargo bay setup provided ample temperature control for roughly an hour, even in the 110 degree weather of Phoenix, Arizona. He also said that frozen foods should be shipped with ice packs.

While the Transporter can do consumer deliveries, Udelv is focused on B2B deliveries, calling the middle mile low-hanging fruit. As we’ve seen with Gatik, limiting delivery routes to fixed, repeatable points (e.g., distribution warehouse to store location) avoids the complications that come with consumer deliveries. This in turn can make middle-mile delivery vehicles easier to pass muster with regulatory bodies and get on the roads faster.

Udelv and Mobileye plan to produce more than 35,000 Transporters by 2028, with commercial operations starting in 2023. The companies have their firs pre-order of 1,000 vehicles from Donlen, a U.S. commercial fleet leasing and management company.

Mercato Raises $26M to Help Indie Grocers Sell Online

Mercato, an online platform that helps smaller groceries establish e-commerce stores, has raised a $26 million Series A round of funding. TechCrunch was first to report the news today, writing that the round was led by Velvet Sea Ventures with participation from Team Europe and returning Seed investors Greycroft and Loeb.nyc.

As we have covered extensively over the past year, the pandemic accelerated consumer adoption of online grocery shopping. And while the number of people using grocery e-commerce has come down from the record highs of last summer, the most recent data from Brick Meets Click showed that U.S. consumers spent $6.1 billion on grocery pickup and delivery in February of 2021.

As a result, the big retailers in the space have ramped up their spending to keep up with demand and eventually encourage online grocery shopping. Giants like Walmart and Albertsons have and are investing in automated e-commerce order fulfillment and expanding curbside pickup and delivery options.

That’s great for big, publicly traded grocery retailers, who have the money to implement multi-faceted online shopping experiences. But what about the smaller, local, independent grocers without a huge market cap? That’s where Mercato comes in.

Mercato’s platform handles all the operational functions of running an online store for the smaller grocer. Mercato takes care of order management and processing, online marketing and even connects stores with a network of delivery drivers across the country. During the pandemic’s first big wave last year, Mercato launched a rapid on-boarding process that it now says can get grocers online in as little as 24 hours.

Mercato told TechCrunch that it has 1,000 merchants across the country on its platform, up from 60 in March of last year. The company said it will use its new funding to expand its team and its data analytics services.

Trax Raises $640M for its Computer Vision-based Grocery Inventory Management

Trax, a computer vision company that helps physical retailers and CPG companies with inventory management, announced today that it has raised a $640 million Series E round of funding. The round was led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 and funds management by existing investor BlackRock. Other investors include OMERS and Sony Innovation Fund by IGV. This brings the total amount of funding raised by Trax to more than $1 billion.

The Trax system uses a combination of camera installations, shelf-scanning robots and computer vision to monitor products on store shelves. Product Images are sent to Trax’s cloud-based machine learning system to analyze and identify when inventory is low on store shelves, or when items are misplaced.

Trax is also used by CPG companies to help them audit store shelves to ensure they are getting the placement they paid for.

Trax, which launched its Retail Watch service in the U.S. back in October of 2020, isn’t the only company using computer vision to help stores manage inventory. Cashierless checkout systems like Grabango and Trigo promise similar, constant shelf monitoring and visibility through camera installations and advanced computer vision. And robots from Simbe and Bossa Nova offer less installation-intensive solutions.

Trax is certainly striking while the funding iron is hot. Grocery related startups have raised a bunch of money in 2021. In addition to the raft of grocery delivery startups that have secured big raises, companies that are helping physical grocery retailers are also raking in cash. Stor.AI, which helps grocers deploy online shopping services, and Shelf Engine, which helps grocers with inventory forecasting, both raised significant rounds last month.

Spain’s Glovo Lands €450M to Expand Its Dark Convenience Store Delivery Business

Delivery service Glovo announced today it has raised €450 million (~$528 million USD) in Series F funding. The round was led by Lugard Road Capital and the Luxor Capital Group, with participation from returning investors Delivery Hero, Drake Enterprises, and GP Bullhound. 

Barcelona, Spain-based Glovo says that this fundraise — its largest to date — will go towards expanding Glovo’s reach in the 20 markets in which the company already operates. In particular, the company will expand its Q-Commerce, aka ghost convenience store, division in these areas. 

Customers order online from these convenience stores, which carry food and household items and deliver goods to customers in 30 minutes or less. Glovo launched its concept of the dark convenience store delivery in 2019 as a way to stand out from other delivery services, most of which were focused primarily on restaurant food at the time. Glovo said today it can provide delivery in 10 minutes or less in some urban areas, and that it anticipates “a permanent shift in consumer habits towards same-day and instant delivery.”

Recent funding in the realm of super-quick delivery suggests the same. In Europe, that includes Berlin-based Gorillas, which raised $290 million in March, Italy’s Everli, which just raised $100 million, and Rohlik, a Czech Republic-based company that recently nabbed $230 million. Activity (and investment) is equally big in the states, notably with Fridge No More’s $15.4 million fundraise and a whopping $1.5 billion for GoPuff last month.

Glovo plans to have 200 dark convenience stores running by the end of 2021. Currently, they are in Barcelona and Madrid in Spain as well as Lisbon, Portugal and Milan, Italy. Future stores are planned for Valencia, Spain; Porto, Portugal; Rome, Italy; and Bucharest, Romania.

As part of this q-commerce growth, Glovo will also build up its deals with major supermarkets. Right now, its roster of stores includes Carrefour, Continente, and Kaufland.

Takeoff Technologies to Have 40 Automated Fulfillment Centers Operating This Year

Takeoff Technologies launched its first grocery automated fulfillment center in the fall of 2018. Needless to say, a lot has happened in the grocery space since then, including a global pandemic that abruptly pushed record amounts of grocery shopping online. To keep up with this wave of grocery e-commerce, more grocers have accelerated and adopted the use of automated fulfillment centers like Takeoff’s.

We last checked in with Takeoff during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020. At that time, the company had six centers operational and another 20 under construction. Since it has almost been a year since then, we checked back in with Max Pedró, Co-Founder and President of Takeoff Technologies this week. Pedró said that Takeoff now has 13 sites that are live now, and will have more than 40 by the end of this year. Takeoff has partnerships with retailers such as Albertsons, Ahold Delhaize, and Carrefour, with sites running on both coasts of the U.S., as well as in Canada, Australia and in Dubai.

The latest market survey from Brick Meets Click showed that grocery e-commerce dropped between January and February of this year. Usage fell particularly among those over 60, who were among the first groups of people to get vaccinated. Online grocery shopping is expected to go through a market correction this year as vaccinations allow people to move more freely outside of the home.

But Pedró believes that customers have developed new habits after a year of lockdowns and e-commerce is here to stay. He’s not alone in that belief. Mercatus forecasts grocery e-commerce will hit $250 billion by 2025, taking up 21.5 percent of total grocery sales.

Obviously, Pedró has a horse in the automated fulfillment race, but he outlined his reasoning for why he believes the technology is here to stay. First, Pedró said that automated fulfillment makes the online grocery business model more economical. Part of the reason it can become more economical is because automated fulfillment creates more throughput — grocers can pick and pack more orders, faster. Finally, Pedró said that automated fulfillment allows independent grocers to better compete with giants like Walmart and Amazon, which offer free two-hour delivery to their members.

Along with all this opportunity, Takeoff is also facing increased competition in the automated fulfillment space. Swisslog is providing fulfillment to regional Texas grocer H-E-B. Walmart has enlisted the help of Alert Innovation, Dematic and Fabric to build out dozens of automated fulfillment centers. And Kroger is starting to open up its own, standalone automated Customer Fulfillment Centers powered by Ocado.

There are still questions over how many customers will continue to use e-commerce for groceries after they’ve been vaccinated, and the overall efficacy and economics of automated fulfillment. But for now, it appears that Takeoff’s technology is taking off with retailers this year.

If you’re curious about the future of robotics in grocery, be sure to attend ArticulATE, our virtual food automation conference on May 18!

Grocery Apps Remain Popular with VCs as Everli, Nice Tuan and Zapp Raise Money

Given the frothy state of funding, it feels like there is a giant online supermarket stocked full of grocery-related startups and VCs are just wandering the aisles, filling up their baskets with companies promising to revolutionize the way we get our food.

At the beginning of March, we wrote about a single 12-hour period in which four grocery startups got funding (Instacart, Crisp, Rohlik and Flink). And it seems that VCs were just getting warmed up. Since that day, we’ve seen a number of grocery startups raise money including Stor.AI, Fridge No More, Jiffy, Shelf Engine, Weee!, Gorillas, Getir and GoPuff.

That list has grown once again this week as three more grocery startups have raised rounds of funding:

Everli, which is kind of like a European Instacart facilitating grocery pickup and delivery from local stores, raised a $100 million Series C round of funding led by Verlinvest (hat tip: TechCrunch).

Nice Tuan, a Chinese app that focuses on community grocery shopping received a $750 million investment round led by Alibaba Group Holding and DST Global (hat tip: Deal Street Asia).

Zapp, a London-based operator of delivery-only stores has received an undisclosed round of funding, TechCrunch reports from multiple sources.

There are couple things of note from this round of news. First is that European speedy delivery startups remain popular with investors right now, especially London-based ones. Zapp faces competition from the likes of Weezy, Jiffy, Getir and Gorillas.

Second is that these funding rounds are no joke. Nice Tuan’s $750 million haul follows fellow Chinese grocery app Xingsheng Youxuan’s $2 billion funding round in February. In the U.S., goPuff raised $1.5 billion, In Europe Gorillas raised $290 million and Getir raised $300 million (evidently startups starting with the letter “G” are also popular).

How long with this frothiness continue? That’s unclear. Will startups like Weezy or Fridge No More, whose funding is only in the double digit millions feel pressure to raise more to compete? And what about the overall grocery delivery space? The pandemic forced record amounts of grocery e-commerce, but a market correction is predicted for this year bringing those numbers back down to earth. But many of these startups are looking to change the way we grocery shop altogether by turning it into more of an always-on utility. Will people adopt speedy delivery as their new norm?

We don’t have a particular crystal ball for that, but we at The Spoon will chronicle it all as the market unfolds.

Google and Albertsons Partner for Shoppable Maps, Predictive Grocery Lists and More

Google and Albertsons announced a wide-ranging, multi-year partnership today that will see a range of high-tech features added to consumer grocery shopping across more than 2,200 Albertsons stores.

According to the press release, Albertsons has been working with a number of different teams across Google over the past year. In a corporate blog post, also released today, Google outlined new grocery delivery and pickup features that have been integrated into Google Search and will be coming to Google Maps later this year:

Delivery and curbside pickup have grown in popularity during the pandemic — they’re convenient and minimize contact. To make this process easier, we’re bringing helpful shopping information to stores’ Business Profiles on Maps and Search, like delivery providers, pickup and delivery windows, fees, and order minimums. We’re rolling this out on mobile Search starting with Instacart and Albertsons Cos. stores in the U.S., with plans to expand to Maps and other partners.

Other fruits of this partnership weren’t specified, but the companies said forthcoming innovations include: Shoppable maps with dynamic hyperlocal features, AI-powered conversational commerce, and predictive grocery list building.

That Albertsons has hopped into the virtual shopping cart with Google actually makes a lot of sense. The pandemic pushed record numbers of people into online grocery shopping last year, and while those online sales figures have cooled recently, grocery e-commerce is predicted to hit $250 billion by 2025. So integrating high-tech features from a trusted and ubiquitous brand like Google to grab more of those online dollars is a no brainer.

As a result of all this money flowing into grocery e-commerce, retailers are locked in a fierce battle to be your grocer of choice. A partnership with Google isn’t a nice to have — at this point it’s a need to have for Albertsons. Albertsons is up against deep-pocketed giants like Amazon, which is building out its own chain of physical supermarket stores, and Walmart, which is expanding its delivery options and adding more automated fulfillment. Albertsons could also find it is getting squeezed on the smaller end by a cohort of new, urban grocery startups that promise delivery in 10 minutes.

But Albertsons isn’t being caught flat-footed. It has proved itself to be a very tech-forward retailer, and its innovation has only accelerated since the pandemic. The grocer is expanding the use of automated micro-fulfillment, piloting smart lockers and robotic curbside pickup kiosks, and is even testing out remote controlled grocery delivery robots.

For its part, Google continues to be a bit of a sleeper in the foodtech world. Over the past few years, the company has been rolling out a number of features that transform the way we find, order and get our food delivered.

While we don’t know the full extent of what its partnership with Google will bring, these first steps are a smart play by Albertsons. By getting inserted into Google Search and Maps results, Albertsons can more seamlessly integrate with consumers’ everyday routine, and create a more frictionless shopping experience for customers.

Turkey: Getir Raises $300M to Get People Groceries in Ten Minutes

Turkish on-demand grocery delivery startup Getir announced on Friday that it had raised a $300 million Series C round of funding. The new round was led by Sequoia Capital and existing investor Tiger Global, and comes just months after Getir finalized a $128 million Series B investment round. The company has raised $470 million to date.

Getir is part of the current crop of startups that promise super speedy grocery delivery. Getir operates a number of smaller distribution centers that are set up in different neighborhoods within a city. Users order items via an app and couriers are dispatched to complete deliveries in roughly 10 minutes.

In February, Getir expanded to offer delivery in London, and the company says it will use its new funding to expand into The Netherlands, Germany and France. But it will face competition as it does so, as a number of speedy grocery delivery startups in Europe have received funding recently. In London, Weezy and Jiffy offer similar services. And in Germany, Gorillas just closed a $290 million round last week for its own Euro expansion.

As we covered last week, all of these startups (plus the ones in the U.S. like GoPuff and Fridge No More) are all angling to change the way consumers view grocery shopping. By providing delivery in 10 minutes or less, companies essentially turn groceries into a utility that is available on tap. Shoppers could literally get groceries multiple times a day to fulfill a need or even just on a whim because they want something.

It’s still very early stages for all of these startups however, and it remains to be seen if and how customers will respond to such a service, and how far these types of services can scale. Can speedy delivery only work in dense urban environments? And as more players compete, how many micro-groceries stores does one neighborhood need? Given the rate of funding in the space, I assume we’ll find out pretty fast.