A daily newsletter summarizing recent activity & interesting start-ups globally
RECENT NOTABLE ACTIVITY – ONLINE GROCERY
- Yiguo, an online platform for groceries raises $300M in Series D funding from Alibaba owned Tmall. Link
- Miss Fresh, an online platform for fresh produce raises $230M in Series C funding from Tiger Global Management and Genesis Capital Ventures. Link
- Quitoque, an online platform for recipe box raises $4.36M in Series A funding from 360 Capital, ISAI, NCI, and business angels. Link
- Farmstead, an online platform for groceries raises $2.8M in Seed funding from Resolute Ventures, Social Capital, Y Combinator, and Liquid 2 Ventures. Link
- Big Basket, an online platform for groceries raises $838K as Venture Debt from Trifecta Capital. Link
- Fresh Range, an online platform for farm products and groceries raises $363K in Seed funding from Seedrs, an equity crowdlending platform. Link
- Milkbasket, an online subscription for groceries raises an undisclosed amount of Seed funding from Lenovo Capital and Incubator Group (LCIG) and Blume Ventures. Link
- Albertson, an offline grocery chain acquires Plated, a meal kit delivery service. Link
- The Chefs’ Warehouse, a distributor of specialty food products acquires Fells Point Wholesale Meats. Link
- Instacart, an online marketplace for groceries is planning to partner with Loblaw to launch its operations in Canada. Link
- Chef’d, an online platform for recipe kits partners with Glenson’s to expand its distribution through brick-and-mortar retail. Link
- Shipt, an on-demand grocery delivery service has partnered with Dierbergs for delivering groceries in St.Louis, Missouri. Link
- Honest Bee, an online marketplace for groceries launches its operations in Thailand. Link
SOME INTERESTING STARTUPS FOUND
Farmstead (2016, California, $2.8M) – An online retailer of groceries. One of the first company to use AI to predict the amount of food to be sourced from the suppliers to in order to reduce the food wastage.
Needed (2016, Berlin, Unfunded) – A mobile application for creating grocery shopping list. Offers multiple features such as multiple shopping lists, matching deals from favorite stores, inbuilt product database and automatic synchronization across multiple devices.
Takeoff (2016, Cambridge, Unfunded) – A technology solution provider for offline retailers. Offers mini-warehouses using grocery-sorting robots to assemble orders for the retailers. The company plans to open five sites with three retail partners by the end of 2017.
LEADER BOARD – ONLINE GROCERY
Online Retailers- Horizontal
Ocado (2002, Hatfield, IPO) – Online grocery retailing company. Went public in 2010. Current market cap is £1.73B.
Yiguo (2005, Shanghai, $500M) – Online platform for ordering groceries. Backed by Tmall and Suning Commerce Group.
Big Basket (2011, Bangalore, $497M) – Online and mobile platform for grocery delivery. Also, has hyperlocal logistics for one hour express delivery. Backed by Helion Venture Partners.
Online Retailers- Food Focused
Womai (2008, Beijing, $330M) – Online retailer offering majorly health food as well as imported food products in China. Backed by Baidu.
Fruit Day (2009, Shanghai, $195M) – Online platform for ordering imported fruits. Backed by ClearVue Partners.
Benlai (2012, Beijing, $157M) – Online retailer for premium food products e.g. locally-grown organic vegetables to imported food products in China. Backed by CDH Investments, and China Equity among others.
Online Retailers- Organic Grocery
Door to door organics (2007, Lafayette, $43M) – Online retailer for organics products on the subscription basis. Backed by Arlon Group.
Tony’s Farm (2009, Shanghai, $39M) – Online retailer for organic grocery. Backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers
My Pimlico market (2010, Charenton-le-Pont, $3.65M) – Online organic superstore. Backed by Siparex Sigefi.
Hyperlocal Delivery
Instacart (2012, SF, $675M) – Hyperlocal delivery for grocery products through personal shopper. Backed by Y Combinator.
BeeQuick (2014, Beijing, $110M) – An O2O marketplace for ordering grocery where delivery is done by vendors. Backed by Sequoia, and Hillhouse among others.
Dmall (2015, Beijing, $100M) – An online marketplace to order groceries from local businesses delivered by personal shoppers. Backed by IDG Capital Partners.
Farm to Home
Miss Fresh (2014, Beijing, $402M) – Online platform for ordering fresh produce sourced directly from farms. Backed by China Growth Capital, and Tencent among others.
Freshmarket (2012, Suzhou, $119M) – Online delivery of organic goods directly from local growers. Employs process monitoring at all stages. Backed by Tiantu Capital.
Good Eggs (2011, SF, $46.5M) – An open marketplace for local farm produce and other organic food products. Backed by Index Ventures, Sequoia Capital.
Recipe Box Based Grocery
Blue Apron (2012, NYC, IPO) – Delivers meal kits, including pre-measured ingredients and recipes, in refrigerated boxes. Backed by Strips Group. The current market cap is $1.18B.
Hellofresh (2012, Berlin, $367M) – Weekly subscription-based service that provides 3-4 recipes and related groceries. Sources seasonal and local organic food. Backed by Insight Partners.
Sun Basket (2011, San Fransisco, $52M) – Delivers recipe boxes with pre-measured ingredients. Backed by Unilever Ventures, Baseline Ventures.
Online Meat
Licious (2015, Bangalore, $14M) – Online retailer for meat products. Backed by Mayfield, Sistema and Tholons Capital among others.
Carre de Boeuf (2009, Paris, $3M) – Online platform for ordering meat products. Backed by CM-CIC Capital Prive.
Crowd Cow (2015, Seattle, $2M) – Online marketplace for purchasing beef in a group. Backed by Maveron, Fuel Capital.
B2B- Marketplace
Ds365 (2014, Beijing, $121M) – Online B2B marketplace for FMCG goods. Backed by DT Capital Partners, Matrix Partners China, UCF Group, Grand Yangtze Capital, K2 VC (Xianfeng Evergreen)
Liancair (2015, Shanghai, $23M) – Online B2B marketplace for food items allowing business to purchase products from the listed vendors.
Zhanghetianxia (2013, Beijing, $16M) – Online B2B marketplace for groceries, food items from the listed vendors. Backed by RiverHill Fund.
B2B- Wholesaler
Huimin (2013, Beijing, $295M) – Online platform allowing businesses to purchase grocery products. Backed by Shenzhen Fortune Venture.
Farm link (2014, Beijing, $39M) – Online supplier of groceries and food items to restaurants. Backed by Sequoia Capital.
Xiaonongnv (2014, Shenzhen, $14.5M) – Online supplier of groceries products. Backed by Shenzhen Capital Group.
Farm to Business
Meicai (2014, Beijing, $253M) – Fresh fruits and vegetable delivery to small and medium restaurant market. Backed by Bluelake Capital.
Yimutian (2011, Beijing, $20M) – Online B2B agriculture product marketplace allowing farmers and brokers to sell directly to the businesses e.g. restaurants. Backed by Sequoia Capital.
Shopping List Builder
Shopwell (2008, Palo Alto, $7.4M) – Grocery list building app based on nutritional content.
Shoptimise (2012, Paris, $5.8M) – Shopping list building platform.
Enablers
My Web Grocer (1999, Winooski, $61M) – SaaS for online grocers. Backed by Strip Groups.
Leader board includes all the top funded, IPO and successfully running bootstrapped companies along with their location, founding year and funding amount.
For latest update, visit Online Grocery feed.