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The Spoon

Daily news and analysis about the food tech revolution

Food Tech Funding

Pitchbook: Food Tech Funding Dropped Almost 60% in 2023

The food tech sector navigated rough waters in 2023, as venture capital funding experienced a significant downturn for the second consecutive year. According to Pitchbook’s Q4 2023 report, food tech funding saw a steep drop of 59% in annual VC deal values, plummeting to $9.2 billion from $22.5 billion in 2022. This contraction is in step with an overall deceleration in venture investing due to a combination of macroeconomic challenges and sector-specific headwinds.

Alex Frederick, the report’s author, spoke with The Spoon about some of the factors driving the decline.

“We’re seeing high-interest rates and a closed IPO window continuing to constrain VC activity,” Frederick explains. “Additionally, annual food price inflation, although slowing to 2.2% this year, has cumulatively pushed food prices to record highs for consumers. This presents a significant challenge for innovative startup CPG products attempting to enter the market at a premium.”

According to Frederick, the deceleration is particularly pronounced in specific subsectors of food tech. “The whole e-commerce space, including online grocery and restaurant delivery, is down 67% in terms of dollars in just one year, and 87% since the peak in 2021,” Frederick said. “This major deceleration is largely due to an investor shift from growth to profitability and positive unit economics.”

Investment in technology for restaurants and retail has also faced a sharp decline, dropping 71-72% over the past year and 85% over the past two years. Similarly, the alternative protein space, once the darling of food tech, has seen a deceleration, with investors increasingly focusing on companies that can demonstrate a path to profitability.

I asked Frederick about picks and shovels type of investments, and he said while the numbers don’t necessarily show up in the aggregate funding, he is seeing some increased activity by companies who are building out inputs and production for alternative proteins, including a focus on alternatives to growth serum and building fermentation bioreactor infrastructure.

“There’s just more attention, a growth of stakeholders, and a focus on building out all of the inputs and infrastructure they would need to grow that industry.”

You can see my full interview with Alex below and can download an excerpt of the report on the Pitchbook website.

The Spoon Talks With Pitchbook About Q4 2023 Food Tech Investment Landscape

2023 Restaurant Tech EcoSystem: Nourishing the Bottom Line

In collaboration between TechTable and Vita Vera Ventures, we are pleased to share an updated 2023 Restaurant Tech Ecosystem map.

We all saw that the pandemic brought a wave of experimentation in the restaurant tech space, but we also know that tech-driven change is not always linear. 

In early 2022, we made bold predictions about the restaurant tech environment in 2023, as we anticipated numerous acquihires ahead (acquisitions primarily driven by tech talent vs strategic tech value). This was due to the tight tech labor market (at the time) and the increasingly challenging funding and interest rate conditions. 

However, with the recent wave of macro tech layoffs, the tech labor market is no longer tight, and we believe more restaurant tech companies may be forced to shut down rather than finding a soft landing through acquisition. We’ve already seen a strong reset on requirements for capital efficiency and valuations of startups in the sector. This macro shift may create potential for rollup opportunities, but many early-stage assets across the sector are overfunded single-point solutions and still subscale.

This is ironic as the need for tech-driven solutions has never been stronger, but companies without the right growth metrics will likely struggle to survive. The inflationary environment is also forcing harder decisions for operators, which may further dampen their willingness to engage with new solutions.

With that in mind, we are pleased to share our 2023 Restaurant Tech Ecosystem, which serves as a current heat map of the broader ecosystem within the US (and is clearly not exhaustive). 

Click here to enlarge/download image of map. Click here for downloadable PDF.

The Journey from Point Solutions to Comprehensive Tech Stacks

While single-point solutions for things like online ordering, loyalty programs, and delivery were popular during the pandemic, we have reached a moment now with perhaps too many point solutions in the market. 

Tech stacks that require too many logins are now in fact creating a cognitive burden for employees, rather than the intended promise of efficiency and ease of use. As a result, operators are beginning to seek integrated systems and smaller tech stacks that can do more. (See commentary in the previous section about rollup opportunities!) 

Restaurant tech advisor David Drinan succinctly identifies the near-term priority for most operators: “The restaurant industry is thirsty for technology innovation that will deliver high margin, incremental revenue.”

On the operational side, managers are still struggling with certain areas such as scheduling and inventory management. These tasks can be time-consuming, especially for independent restaurant owners who have limited resources. As a result, we have seen a growth category of solutions that can automate these functions and provide real-time data to help operators make informed decisions.

Help *Still* Wanted   

The labor shortage in the restaurant industry has been a major challenge for operators in recent years, and labor optimization is still at the top of every operator’s mind. The pandemic caused many workers to permanently leave the hospitality industry, leaving restaurants short-staffed. 

According to the National Restaurant Association, almost two-thirds of US restaurant operators say they do not have enough employees to support existing demand. Instead of replacing this lost workforce, many operators are turning to tech to automate more functions and reduce the need for human labor. 

From digital menus and ordering kiosks to automated kitchen equipment, there are many ways that technology can help restaurants operate more efficiently with fewer employees. By automating basic tasks such as taking orders and processing payments, operators can free up their staff to focus on more complex tasks that require human expertise, such as customer service and food preparation.

Another trend the restaurant industry is grappling with is the changing expectations of younger workers when it comes to the employer/employee relationship. With more emphasis on work-life balance, career development, and job satisfaction, younger workers are looking for more than just a paycheck. 

To meet these expectations, operators are looking for workforce management solutions that can help to improve engagement, development, and rewards for their employees. This includes tools for tracking and managing schedules, as well as innovative solutions for tip outs and other compensation mechanisms. By investing in these solutions, operators can not only attract and retain top talent but also improve the overall efficiency and productivity of their workforce.

Finally, it is worth noting that basic scheduling and labor management tools can have a significant impact on profitability by reducing labor costs and improving operational efficiency. By automating scheduling and timekeeping, for example, restaurants can reduce the likelihood of overstaffing or understaffing, which can be costly in terms of wasted labor or lost sales opportunities. 

In the end, the ability to leverage technology to optimize labor is critical for restaurants to remain competitive in a challenging operating environment. While kiosks and text ordering have shown promise in the QSR space, there are many other opportunities for technology to make a positive impact on the industry as a whole.

Ghost Kitchens: It’s Even More Complicated

In our 2021 restaurant tech retrospective, we had a lot to say about this growing subsector, including the challenges for success (a.k.a. profitability) within the confines of a ghost kitchen business model.  

Now, as the concept of virtual and ghost kitchens continues to evolve even further, it’s important for operators to understand the complexities involved and navigate these challenges to build successful ghost kitchen operations.

One major obstacle has been the potential for tension between virtual brands and existing businesses, where adding virtual brands can lead to direct competition with their own existing businesses. Finding the right tech and operational partner to balance between these two is key.

Additionally, ensuring food safety and maintaining quality standards across multiple brands can be a challenge. Many of the generic virtual brands have lacked distinct value or clear taste standards, leading to underwhelming food quality issues and removal from the major third-party delivery platforms.

Last Mile Magic

Making the economics work for restaurant delivery is a growing priority for the industry. This includes better interoperability between POS/Kitchen systems and delivery providers, better routing and batching systems, localized kitchens, and of course even the mode of transportation for delivery.

We are tracking over 20 companies in the North American unattended last mile category, but it is still early days with most (all?) of the solutions operating in limited geographies and customer trials. So we have left this slice off the infographic for 2023, but don’t forget to keep your eyes on the sky, as we’ve seen recent growth of backyard drone delivery companies which are proving to be faster and better for the environment (if they can outweigh the noise and regulatory concerns).

GenAI on the Menu

Tech entrepreneurs have long dreamed of personalized food recommendations, but few have succeeded in creating true personalization beyond dietary concerns, allergens, or ingredient likes/dislikes. 

However, we have now reached a unique moment where new technologies like ChatGPT will be able to create meaningful and personalized interactions with guests. This has always been the premise of a variety of AI-driven restaurant tech startups, but the ability to leverage the underlying data to engage and interact with guests in a truly personal and conversational manner is game-changing. 

By using data from previous orders and interactions alone, ChatGPT can help to create a more tailored experience for guests, from recommending menu items to offering personalized promotions. ChatGPT can become a critical part of a restaurant’s marketing team by creating content, with the ability to easily translate to different languages as well. This could give operators a crucial competitive advantage as consumers demand more personalized experiences. We have only begun to see the capabilities of ChatGPT with free templates being offered to restaurant operators already.

Moreover, conversational AI like ChatGPT can also be a valuable tool for restaurant operators seeking to understand their own operating metrics. By integrating ChatGPT into their tech stack, operators can ask natural language questions and receive real-time responses, empowering them to make informed decisions about their operations.

Emerging Restaurant Tech Concepts to Watch

  • Chat/AI across marketing and operations
  • Tech-enabled employee support and training (for example, personalized perks, tip-out options, or language choices) 
  • AI for scheduling to free up managers
  • Dynamic pricing
  • Reusable containers + tech-driven circular economy for foodservice 

Looking ahead –  As always, we welcome your thoughts and reactions, and look forward to continuing to follow this sector together in the coming years. Reach out to us: Brita@vitavc.com and hello@techtablesummit.com. 

Food Tech Funding Drops 21.5% in Q2, But Alt-Protein Proves Resilient With Only 9% Decline

According to a new report from Pitchbook, total food tech venture funding declined by over one-fifth in total deal value in the second quarter of 2022, dropping from $6.9 billion in Q1 2022 to $5.6 billion in Q2 2022.

The drop in deal value corresponds with a decrease in the total number of deals, which declined in the second quarter by 23%, going from 359 funding deals in Q1 2022 to 275 deals completed in Q2 2022.

Q2’s decline marks the fourth straight quarter in which food tech funding has dropped. Total investment is down 45% ($4.5 billion) from the sector’s high water mark of $10.1 billion reached in the first quarter of 2021.

Food tech isn’t alone in its pullback. The sector’s quarter-over-quarter decline in funding is just slightly less in relative terms than the overall venture capital market, which dropped 23% from the previous quarter. At $5.6 billion in total funding in Q2 2022, food tech represented about 5.2% of total venture capital in the quarter, compared to 7.6% of total funding in the first quarter of 2021 when food tech funding had reached its high point.

As usual, the total funding for the sector was dominated by a handful of mega-rounds, including Wonder’s $350 million series B. Other big rounds include Upside’s $400 million series C and Gopuff’s $1.5 billion, which Pitchbook says closed on May 18 (though word of the forthcoming round leaked late last year).

Gopuff’s funding comes at a time when many investors and industry watchers are reevaluating the business model for the ultra-fast grocery business, a sector responsible for many of the mega-rounds that pumped up the food tech sector’s total deal value over the past year and a half. Gopuff, like many of its peers, announced layoffs over the past few months and that they would shut down a good chunk of its distribution network. Essentially everyone in the ultra-fast-grocery is attempting to slash costs as they look to extend runways as they recognize they’ve seen their last big funding round for a while.

So will food tech investment continue to decline? My guess is yes, at least in the near term, in large part due to recessionary fears, the continued tightening of monetary policy in the US, and broader geopolitical uncertainty. The absence of future investment into ultra-fast grocery may also lead to near-term drops compared to previous quarters over the next year, but the good news is that as the inflated valuations from the ultra-fast grocery recede into the rearview mirror, overall declines quarter over quarter should decelerate.

One particular sector I am keeping an eye on is the alternative protein segment, which has held up better than the overall food tech space. According to the Good Food Institute, alt-protein funding declined only 9% quarter over quarter, a much smaller decline than both the broader food tech industry and the overall venture market. Alt-protein has seen its share of late stage high-value deals (like Upside, Impossible, Eat Just, etc), something which looks to have continued into the most recent quarter. It’s also seen continued investment across all three major sub-segments (plant-based, precision fermentation, and cultivated/cell-based), which may have contributed to its relative resilience. If any of the three might be susceptible to potential pullback, it’s plant-based meat, a market that is proving to be both crowded and, in some cases, one in which some brands struggle to bring back repeat customers.

Long-term, I expect investors in future food to continue to be bullish, especially as we start to see government money start to enter the alt-protein market. Globally, governments are beginning to view future food as an important part of national security strategy, and while the US is lagging a bit in that regard – food was not a major part of the recent climate change-centric Inflation Reduction bill that just passed – we are beginning to see state governments start to invest in the space. While the alt-protein space has lacked the same type of government taxpayer support as that of alternative energy, a moderate amount of future growth in government support should catalyze future private investment in the space.

The Week in Food Tech Funding: Perfect Day’s Big Raise & Gorillas Quits Monkeying Around

The week’s big news is a $350 million Series D raise by precision fermentation unicorn Perfect Day. There’s a whole lot packed into this announcement, so let’s get right to it:

First, the funding raises Perfect Day’s total to $750 million and sets the company on track for a possible IPO. The timing couldn’t be better, as tech startups continue to see rising valuations and the market is hungry for more food tech (see Oatly). And while Ginkgo Bioworks was the first company with significant precision fermentation (PF) capabilities to IPO, Perfect Day will be the first true future food PF pure-play to go public.

As part of the news, the company announced an expansion of its consumer products company, the Urgent Company (TUC). TUC, Perfect Day’s wholly-owned CPG company behind the Brave Robot ice cream brand, will add new “household staples” to its portfolio with Modern Kitchen, the second consumer brand under the TUC umbrella. Modern Kitchen’s first product will be dairy-free cream cheese, which the company will make with its animal-identical whey. As part of the announcement, TUC revealed Brave Robot is now in 5 thousand stores and that they’ve moved a million pints of ice cream.

Speaking of Brave Robot, it always struck me as a risky choice for a product name. Sure it stands out, but Brave Robot also doesn’t exactly make one think of tasty ice cream, which I think is the biggest challenge for a product that also wants to somehow communicate to the consumer it is made differently from traditional ice cream. With Modern Kitchen, I have to wonder if Perfect Day went purposefully conservative, choosing a brand this time around that doesn’t create extra work for itself.

Perfect Day also announced their third line of business (the other two being ingredient innovation and consumer products) in enterprise biology scale-up services. This move is a formalization of its enterprise biology efforts that started with the company’s 2020 acquisition of bioprocess scale-up facility SBF. With its new business line, Perfect Day hopes to help other food companies with technology transfer and scale-up consulting services.

“We first got into the ingredient business because food companies, big and small, were eager to work with the ingredients we had successfully scaled,” said Perumal Gandhi, Perfect Day co-founder, in the news release. “Today, something analogous is happening on the technology side. There are innovators all over the world with ideas and ambitions similar to our animal-free milk protein, but need help getting there. We’re standing up business models to be able to share our demonstrated capabilities in a way that maximizes upsides for all, yet ensures that Perfect Day remains at the forefront of our new industry.”

What struck me about the series of announcements is they illustrate how Perfect Day has matured in both its business and how it talks about itself. The addition of business services not only adds a new revenue line to the company, but it is a strategically savvy move that will set Perfect Day up with a pipeline of long-term IP licensing and ingredient supplier opportunities.

On the company messaging front, it wasn’t all that long ago that Perfect Day struggled to describe its technology and the animal-free dairy products that resulted from it. That’s changed, however, as this announcement brims with confidence. The company has clearly figured out how to communicate the benefits of its product while also giving just the right touch of details around the technology behind it all.

And now, the rest of this week’s funding news:

Cultured Meat

New Age Meats – $25 Million: California-based New Age Meats has raised a $25 million series A to help fund product development and ramp up production of its pork sausage products. Founded in 2018, the company hopes to bring its products to market next year as it uses the funds to double its workforce and build a first pilot production plant.

Ghost Kitchens/Virtual Restaurants

All Day Kitchens – $65 Million: Ghost kitchen startup All Day Kitchens announced this last week they’ve raised a $65 million series D to expand its distributed network of satellite kitchens. The company, which launched in 2018, focuses on helping small independent restaurants expand their reach via a unique model; Unlike traditional ghost kitchens with often treat restaurants like a landlord, All Day Kitchens helps to launch its new restaurant partners across its entire network of kitchens in a given metro area.

Plant-Based

Ripple – $60 Million: Pea-protein alt-dairy specialist Ripple has raised a $60 million Series E. Ripple, which basically is to pea milk what Oatly is to oat dairy products, has continued to grow its products ever since its 2015 debut and plans to use the funding to expand into even more new products and markets. While not all pea-protein products from Ripple have succeeded – see our review of the pretty-bad and now discontinued Ripple yogurt here – I’m intrigued to see what new products they bring to market (well, of course, except maybe yogurt).

Food Delivery

Avo – $45 Million: Israel-based food delivery startup has raised a $45 million Series B. Avo, which offers white-label food and consumer products delivery to landlords and employers, says it plans to use the funding to expand into 10 new metro markets over the next year. From the release: Avo’s mission is to deliver everything from groceries and alcohol to electronics and personal care items to millions of people daily. The company’s customizable amenity platform enables residential and commercial customers to obtain everyday items, the same day, without any minimum order size or incurring any delivery fees of any kind. The platform also excludes a tipping fee, as Avo has a full-time salaried team. Stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, Avo is currently adding a new major market every month – a dramatic increase in growth that has helped drive revenue 1000% over the past two years.

HUNGRY – $21 Million: Chef-powered catering delivery company HUNGRY has raised a $21 million Series C from a mix of athletes, reality TV talent show singers, and the usual mix of corporate venture capital funds. The company, which lets companies cater food from chefs, works with a variety of high-profile chefs such as Tom Colicchi and has claimed it allows chefs to earn up to half a million per year on the HUNGRY platform.

Swiggy – Half a $Bil?: Indian food delivery startup Swiggy is reportedly in talks to raise a $500-$600 million funding round that would value the company at one Oatly ($10 billion). Invesco will likely lead, while others like Softbank will also throw in capital.

10 Minutes Grocery Delivery

Gorillas – $950 Million: Gorillas, the fast-growing, fast-grocery delivery business has raised an eye-popping $950 billion in funding. The news comes even as the company has reportedly decided to stop monkeying around with a US expansion, at least for the time being. According to Business Insider Germany, Gorillas has decided to scale back its US expansion plans outside of New York City and is laying off employees beyond the Big Apple. This funding comes in large part from Delivery Hero as Gorillas continues expansion in as Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, and France.

Plant-Based Fish

Hooked – €3.8 Million: Sweden’s Hooked has raised €3.8 Million for its plant-based fish products. Like many new alt-protein funding rounds nowadays, Hooked’s with news of a celebrity backer, Swedish music star Danny Saucedo. The company launched its plant-based tuna brand Toonish into retail last month in the Swedish market.

Food Robots

Piestro – $4.7 Million: Piestro, a maker of robotic pizza-making kiosks, has raised just under $4.7 million via equity crowdfunding. The campaign, which the Wavemaker Labs portfolio company ran using StartEngine, will be used to fund the second-generation Piestro, which will be the first pizza robot from the company to be deployed in consumer-facing locations and take payments. The company hopes to have its new prototype deployed by December of this year. Wavemaker Labs, which describes itself as a “robotics and automation corporate innovation studio”, has shown a preference for using platforms such as StartEngine and SeedInvest to raise funds with its portfolio companies like Piestro, Miso Robotics, Future Acres and Bobacino.

The Week in Food Tech Funding: Double (Alt) Cheese Funding & Big Money for Misfits

Fall is upon us in the Pacific Northwest, and alongside autumn colors and windy weather is lots and lots of food tech venture capital. This week’s funding news includes not one but two alt-mozzarella startups, a monster round for ugly produce online retailer Misfits Market, and three pieces of food robot funding news.

On to it:

Plant-Based Food

Sophie’s Kitchen – $5.6 Million: Sophie’s Kitchen has raised $5.6 million to fund the growth of its plant-based seafood lineup of products. The company, founded in 2010, offers a line of alt-seafood products, including crab cakes, shrimp, salmon, and tuna. Billy Goat Brands led the round, a Canadian venture fund focused on sustainability. Sophie’s Kitchen products can currently be found at Walmart, Sprouts, and Wegmans. The funding continues the momentum for the plant-based seafood category, which saw $116 million in funding in the first half of 2021 (compared to $26 million for the whole of 2020).

Growthwell – $22 Million: Singapore-based plant-based seafood and chicken maker Growthwell has raised a $22 million Series A led by Creadev. The company, which raised $8 million last year, “owns a portfolio of alternative protein companies aimed at Southeast Asian consumers, including OKK (plant-based meat), Su Xian Zi (vegan mutton), and gomama (ready to eat dishes made from plants).” They also sell a chickpea protein powder called ChickP for use in meat and dairy alternatives.

NUMU Food Group: Plant-based cheese startup NUMU has raised early in September. The amount of the funding was undisclosed. The company makes plant-based mozzarella from potato starch, soybeans, and coconut oil. Started a former DJ named Gunars Elmuts, NUMU sells its cheese to food service providers in shreds and blocks.

Precision Fermentation

Formo – $50 Million: Berlin-based Formo announced it had raised $50 million in Series A funding. The investment in the maker of animal-free cheese was led by EQT Ventures, with Elevat3 Capital and Lowercarbon Capital. Formo uses a precision fermentation process to make animal-free dairy cheese with animal identical proteins. The company plans to use the funding to “With the resulting increase in R&D capacity, Formo intends to expand its product portfolio to represent a wide variety of European dairy specialties such as mozzarella and ricotta, with techniques designed in collaboration with artisan cheesemakers.“

Food Robots

Pudu Robotics – $78 Million: China-based Pudu Robotics announced this week it had raised a $78 million C2 found of financing, matching the same dollar amount for its May C1 funding round. In total, the company has raised $156 million in Series C financing. The company makes a few different types of bots, including a front-of-house bot called the Bellabot, a cleaning bot, and two models of delivery bots.

Keenon Robotics – $200 Million: Another China-based robotics startup Keenon Robotics has raised an impressive round with its $200 million Series D. Its round was led by Softbank. Like Pudu Robotics, Keenon also makes food delivery and front-of-house food service bots and robots for hospitals.

Daxbot – $211 Thousand Crowdfunding: This week, Daxbot, a maker of sidewalk food delivery robots, launched its equity crowdfunding raise. Like many food robot startups, Daxbot is using StartEngine for its raise, and the company has already (as of this writing) raised $211 thousand from 136 investors. Today the company’s robots are being used for food delivery in Philomath, Oregon.

Online Grocery

Misfits Market – $225M Series C-1: Online grocer Misfits Market announced it had raised almost a quarter billion in new funding via a Series C-1 round. It’s a quick turnaround for more capital for the sustainability-focused online grocer that works with farmers and food producers to save ugly produce and food that otherwise would go into the compost bin; the company raised a $200 million Series C in April. Misfits Market joins fellow ugly food retailer Imperfect Foods as one of the companies that have tapped investor interest in the food waste space.

Smart Vending

Foodles – €31 million: Smart corporate food vending/catering startup Foodles has raised a €31 million Series B round from InfraVia Growth and Bpifrance via its Large Venture fund, and follow on rounds from existing investors, Creadev, DN Capital, and Adelie. The French company offers connected fridges, which it calls canteens that it supplies with food. According to the company, each fridge can provide food to up to 59 employees. The company hopes to disrupt a European contract catering market worth 240 billion euros.

Food Supply Chain Software

Grubmarket – $120 Million: Grubmarket, a provider of software and services to enable food producers, has raised a $120 million Series E round. The company’s software enables food producers and distributors to manage inventory, pricing, customer relations, and other company-related operations. The company’s announced hinted in the announcement that they will likely expand from just software into robotics in the future: “GrubMarket will likely also start to explore connected hardware to help those customers, too: robotics for picking and moving items” related to those activities managed by its supply chain oriented software.

Restaurant Tech

SpotOn – $300 Million: Payments software startup SpotOn announced this week it has raised a $300 million Series E to help finance the acquisition of Appetize, a mobile and digital payments startup focused on sports and entertainment venues, amusement parks, and zoos. Mega-VC Andreessen Horowitz led the deal (as they did SpotOn’s last round). A16z’s eagerness to inject more capital into SpotOn probably has a lot to do with the company’s tripling of revenue over the past 18 months. SpotOn, which has traditionally focused on SMBs (the segment of the restaurant space that has been the most aggressive in modernizing its tech stack during the pandemic), will now be able to sell into the enterprise market with the newly acquired Appetize.

The Week in Food Tech Funding: Olio Continues Food Waste’s Hot Streak

Food waste reduction is a hot investment space and one of the most active investor segments within the broader category in surplus food marketplaces.

And last week food waste kept on trucking as Olio, perhaps the most well-known of the share-your-food app startups, announced a $43 million Series B investment. Cofounder Tessa Clarke describes the funding as transformational via this Medium post and explains the three ways she sees funding being put to use:

  • Investment in Core Product: The company plans to hire more developers and build out new features in the core product, including “new features such as ‘Borrow’ and ‘Wanted’.”
  • Expansion of Food Waste Hero Programme: The company plans on expanding its corporate partner program that sources food from food service companies to pick up their excess food waste and redistribute into the community
  • International: the company is eyeing expansion into markets beyond Europe and North America, and it currently has 10 most promising in mind in ” Latin American, Asian & Northern European regions.”.

Over the past couple of years, we’ve watched as companies like Too Good to Go, Flashfood and Karma have raised funding to expand their platforms that enable restaurants and grocery stores to sell excess or soon-to-expire food to deal-shopping and lower-income consumers.

What sets Olio apart is that it enables home to home sharing for food. In this way, it’s like a more focused and less cluttered version of the Buy Nothing Facebook groups that have popped up in recent years. According to Clarke’s Medium post, Olio has helped save 25 million portions of food and 3 million other household items from being tossed in the waste bin.

Olio’s round continues a hot streak for food waste prevention investment over the past month after we saw Apeel raise an eye-popping quarter billion in funding in August. Both Apeel and Olio said they’d seen an acceleration in adoption over the past year, which echoes what we heard at our Food Waste Innovation Forum in June: The pandemic forced both companies and consumers to get serious about reducing food waste.

Here’s what else happened in food tech funding:

Plant-Based

Proeon – $2.4 Million: Pune-based plant-based ingredient company Proeon has raised a $2.4 million seed round. The company is similar to Motif Foodworkds in that its focus is building a range of different ingredient building blocks for companies building plant-based food products. The company plans to use its funding to build an R&D facility in the Netherlands, file more patents and hire more people.

CHKN Not Chicken – $4.5 Million: Portland Oregon based plant-based chicken startup CHKN Not Chicken has raised $4.5 million from Stray Dog Capital. The company will use the funding to expand the distribution of its flagship product into retail and grow its restaurant business. Unlike many of the alt-chicken products like Impossible’s new nuggets, which is made with soy, CHKN Not Chicken is made with pea protein.

Precision Fermentation

All G Foods – AU$16 million: Australian alt-protein startup All G Foods has raised AU$16 million in seed funding to fund growth for its plant-based meat business (Love BUDS Meat) and its precision fermentation-based alt-milk (CellMilk). The company is moving fast with veteran entrepreneur Jan Pacas at the helm. Pacas, who cofounded pet-sitting website Mad Paws, started the company only a year ago.

Cell-Based Meat

CellX – $4.3M: China-based cell-based meat startup CellX has raised $4.3 million in funding. The company makes a cell-based pork product. The company, which has 25 scientists working on developing its cell-based meat product platform in Shanghai. CellX is one of two startups this week that are semifinalists for the XPRIZE “Feed the Next Billion” competition, which is an indication that investors see participation in the XPRIZE contest as a validation of the company.

Wild Earth – $23 Million – Plant-based pet food startup Wild Earth announced a $23 million funding round from a group of investors that includes Mark Cuban and the star of Vampire Diaries, Paul Wesley. The company plans to use the funding to expand its pet food product line into products that use cell-based meat. The company plans to offer cell-based beef, chicken, pork, and seafood as part of the ingredient list for the new lineup, which it plans to start rolling out in 2022.

Mogale Meat Co. – Investment Amount Unknown: Mogale Meat Co, a South African-based cultured meat company, received an investment from alt-protein investor CULT Food Science Corp. Mogale plans to use the capital to invest in BioBank, which, according to the announcement, is “Mogale’s core intellectual property asset that currently contains over 500 cryo-preserved cell samples derived from free-roaming livestock and wild antelope.” Like CeeX, Mogale is an XPRIZE “Feed the Next Billion” semi-finalist.

Food Delivery

Cookunity – $47 million; Chef-powered meal delivery service CookUnity raises a $47 million Series B funding round. CookUnity, which provides chefs with kitchens and the digital platform to connect directly with consumers, is planning on using the money to expand the cities it’s doing business in. The company saw a topline revenue growth rate of over 5x over the past 12 months and has 55 chefs on its roster.

Food Robotics

Piestro – $2 Million+: Piestro, the automated artisanal pizza-making robot that is part of the Wavemaker Labs family of food robot investments, has raised over $2 million on crowdfunding startup platform StartEngine with less than three weeks to go. WaveMaker has continued to emphasize equity crowdfunding as a way to raise capital, starting with Miso Robotics, in which the company has raised $30 million so far via crowdfunding, and other portfolio properties such as the Bobacino robotic tea bar and Future Acres’ ag-bot.

Restaurant Tech

Heard – $10 Million: Hospitality and restaurant point of sale startup Heard has raised $10 million. The company, which counts Tiger Woods as one of its investors, makes point of sale software suite that includes front and back-of-house management tools for smaller restaurant operators.

That’s it for this week. If you have funding news you want in our weekly food tech news wrapup, let us know. And make sure you subscribe if you want to get The Week in Food Tech Funding in your inbox.

The Week in Food Tech Funding: Who-Hoo Cajoo!, Gatik Hauls In $85M

Fast Grocery Startups Continue Stocking Up on Big Cash

Cajoo, a 15 minutes or less fast grocery delivery specialist from France, has raised $40 million in fresh funding. The lead investor on the deal for the startup with the sneezy-sounding name is grocery giant Carrefour. As part of the deal, Carrefour will allow Cajoo to leverage its purchasing organization.

Cajoo is part of a growing cohort of fast grocery (and creatively-named) startups like Weezy, Gorillas, Flink, GoPuff, and JOKR that are building networks of dark stores to deliver a variety of products in (largely) metro areas in the US, Europe, and Asia. The delivery times vary slightly (some promise 10, others 15), as do the products (some are just essentials while others focus on fresh food), but all are looking to expand fast by raising big cash.

Carrefour’s interest in Cajoo makes me wonder if big grocery giants will begin to partner with or acquire fast-grocery startups to compete with Amazon. In recent years, Amazon, which doesn’t offer 15-minute delivery (at least yet), has been putting pressure on grocery providers to up their games with their one-hour or less delivery. While Amazon is much stronger in the US when it comes to grocery (though its presence in Europe is growing), established grocery companies like Carrefour probably see a future where fast-grocery is a utility and are preparing accordingly.

What will be interesting to watch is how established grocery players mesh operations with fast-grocery providers over time. Big players like Kroger and Walmart have widely distributed networks of warehouses and retail stores, but in the fast-grocery business, where neighborhood proximity is key, startups build out their dark store networks zip code by zip code.

For those old enough to remember Kozmo.com, it’s easy to see the similarities with this new generation beyond just the funny name. But unlike Kozmo, this new wave of fast-grocery startups comes at a time when advances in logistics technology, mobility and automation make distributed fast-grocery possible and when consumers en mass are shopping online for daily necessities.

Some are already suggesting online grocery is reaching a saturation point and consolidation is around the corner. While I think this is probably right, I also expect fast-grocery startups to keep bagging big funding rounds for at least the next 6-12 months until the buying frenzy starts.

Fast Grocery isn’t the only funding story this week. Here’s what else happened in food tech funding:

Alt Protein

Plantible Foods, $21.5 million: Plantible Foods, a startup which grows plantweed (aka Lemna), has raised $21.5 million to help fund growth. The San Diego based startup has developed a process to produces a protein that has many of the functional properties of egg white as well a neutral taste and color. The protein is based on RuBiSco enables egg white applications like emusifying and binding for products like creamers and cream cheeses.

Stockeld Dreamery, €16.5 million – Stockeld Dreamery, a maker of plant-based cheese alternatives, raised €16.5 million. The company’s flagship product is a feta alternative made from a base of fermented peas and fava beans. The company is planning to use the new capital to grow its team from 22 people to about 50. In 2022, Stockeld will move into a pilot production plant and headquarters in Stockholm, Sweden.

Ag Tech

Fieldin Raises $30 Million: Fieldin, an ag tech startup that makes tools that digitizes the management of farms, has raised $30 million series B. The company has developed what it calls an agricultural operating system (AgOS) that uses AI and IoT tech to help farmers manage “the entire growing cycle from planning to execution, including equipment, workers, materials, and more.” Sensors are installed on farm equipment like tractors and sprayrs and, according to Fieldin, turns it into ‘smart’ machines.

Protealis, €5.7 Million: Protealis, a company that provides sustainable seeds for protein crops, raised a €5.7 Million in an extension of a Series A round it started earlier this year with a €6 Million investment. The company develops new variants of seeds of protein crops like soy that breed faster and are more resilient.

CPG

Poppi, $13.5 Million: Prebiotic soda company Poppi raises a $13.5 million Series A2 led by CAVU Ventures with some help from celebrities Russell Westbrook and the band the Chainsmokers, and a few others. The company’s ties to CAVU go back to when founders (husband-wife team Stephen and Allison Ellsworth) appeared on Shark Tank in 2018 and got an investment firm’s co-founder Rohan Oza for its prebiotic filled soda.

Allklear, $1.3 Million: Hong Kong-based functional beverage startup Allklear has raised a $1.3 million (HK$10 million) pre-A funding round. The company’s flagship beverage is called Detox Future Salad that is packed with 12 ingredients and 25 essential nutrients that the founder claims is equivalent to five bowls of salad.

nu company, €14 million: nu company, which likes lower-case letters and better-for-you chocolate, has raised a €14 million Series A funding round. The company has a chocolate bar brand in nucao and also has an organic protein brand numove. The company’s products are in 10 thousand stores today and the company has seen triple digital growth over the past four years.

Food Robots & Automation

Gatik, $85 Million: Robotic delivery startup Gatik has raised $85 million Series B, bringing its total funding to $114 million. The company specializes in middle mile delivery, which is shuttling goods between businesses such as between a distributor’s warehouse to a retail store. The company will use the funds to expand operations in Texas, its fourth delivery area, for its all-electric box truck.

Grocery Tech

Zippin, $30 Million: Cashierless checkout startup Zippin raised $30 million to continue to expand its operations across four continents. Zippin joins others like Grabango, Sensei, and Tripo in raising funds this year as the grocery industry accelerates its push into the automated checkout space. The automated checkout cohort is just one segment in a growing array of new companies hoping to help the grocery industry modernize its tech stack. Over the past half-decade, the industry has been racing to modernize their often antiquated technology both in-store and online as they see Amazon trying to pull customers away and companies like Instacart looking to front-end and disintermediate them.

That’s it for this week. If you have funding news you want in ou weekly food tech news wrapup, let us know. And make sure you subscribe if you want to get the The Week in Food Tech Funding in your inbox.