Clichy, June 6th – Foodles announces a €9 million fundraising and welcomes 3 new investors. The start-up, which offers an innovative alternative to traditional company catering, will use these funds to further accelerate its commercial development and expand internationally.
Foodles announces a €9 million fundraising and brings 3 new shareholders: Creadev, the investment fund of the Mulliez family (Auchan, Décathlon, Leroy Merlin), DN capital, a leading pan-European early stage VC fund based in London that has invested in Shazam and Auto1, and Adelie, a newly created fund in partnership with the tech advisory firm Clipperton. The start-up offers a new concept of company catering that has already attracted more than 50 customers in Ile-de-France.
The start-up had already raised 2 million euros in 2017 from the Elior group, one of the leading historical players in the catering sector. This first round enabled the founders to develop and refine their “cloud canteen” proposition in order to achieve product-market fit and develop a scalable and robust tech and operations platform. As part of the transaction, Foodles management remain the controlling shareholders and Elior will divest its shareholding, as Foodles now wishes to build its own, fully-independent food-service proposition.
The fund-raising will support Foodles’ growth, as it aims to become a long-term player in the food service industry. The start-up should more than double its headcount by the end of the year: in particular, it plans to aggressively expand its sales force, as the fast growth to date has relied largely on word-of-mouth. The company not only wants to strengthen its leadership position in the Paris region but also to establish itself in other cities in France and roll out internationally. Part of the money will also be devoted to R&D to ensure it maintains its technological advance and strengthen the food team in order to provide an ever more tasty and varied food offer to its users.
In a sector that may seem saturated, the young company based in Clichy has succeeded in attracting investors thanks to an original B2B approach. By combining a pre-order service and connected fridges, Foodles was inspired not only by the traditional canteen business industry but also by the more trendy B2C food delivery services. “We’ve looked at all the models of the foodtech sector, says Florent Thomann, Board Member of Creadev, and we think this is the winner”.
“The originality of our model lies in a connected fridge providing a direct point of sale in the company- and that on the ground presence dramatically increases customer order rates and retention,” explains CEO and co-founder Michaël Ormancey, as well as “delivering best in class unit economics give highly efficient shared delivery rounds and very minimal food waste”. Thus – a rare occurrence in food technology – the start-up is already profitable. Another significant difference is the startup has decided to focus on making all its delivery personnel full-time employees. “Beyond ethical considerations, this gives us full control over the value chain for our corporate clients”.
For Clément Bonhomme, co-founder, Foodles’ promise is “completely in line with the new aspirations of customers, both companies and users: on the one hand, the new generations intend to eat healthy and want flexibility in their work environment. On the other hand, companies are increasingly concerned about the well-being of their employees and are looking for less rigid solutions than those offered by traditional company catering”.
About Foodles
Launched in 2015 by Clément Bonhomme and Michaël Ormancey, two enthusiasts of cooking and innovation, Foodles offers a new concept of company catering: a varied, healthy and tasty cuisine based on a pre-order service and connected fridges. Foodles currently serves more than 5000 employees a day in nearly 50 client companies around the Paris region, including Ubisoft, Bouygues Immobilier and the Accor Group, and counts 40 employees in its Clichy office. Find more info here: www.foodles.co
About DN Capital
DN Capital is a leading early stage venture capital firm which focuses on Seed, Series A and select series B investments in marketplaces, software, fintech, consumer internet and digital health companies. The firm was founded in 2000 and has operations in London, Berlin and Silicon Valley. DN Capital’s previous funds are top performers and the firm is one of the lead investors in companies such as Endeca (sold to Oracle), Shazam (one of the world’s leading mobile apps, sold to Apple), Auto1 (Europe’s largest used-car marketplace), Purplebricks (IPO London), OLX (sold to Naspers), Remitly (North America’s largest independent digital remittance platform) and Quandoo (sold to Recruit).
The professionals at DN Capital bring over 75 years of private equity experience to their investments, and actively work with portfolio companies to steward their growth through the various stages of development. Additional information about the firm and its portfolio companies can be found at http://dncapital.com