Fast-growing natural food brand, KoRo raises €50M funding round
by Startacus Admin
KoRo secures major investment to expand its product portfolio, develop new marketing channels and further expand its team and business internationally.
Fast-growing natural food company KoRo has today announced a €50M funding round, led by venture capital firm HV Capital, alongside new investors, foodtech specialist Five Seasons Ventures and global investment platform, Partech.
The €50M Series B is a combination of primary and secondary investment, and venture debt. The new funding will be used to expand the product portfolio, to develop new marketing channels and to further expand the team and the business internationally.
More than 500,000 consumers came to KoRo in 2021 to buy delicious natural spreads and nut butters, selections of dried fruits, organic ingredients, snacks and superfoods - generating revenues of over €60m.
In 2021, the brand launched in 10 new markets, including Ireland, Sweden, Denmark and Portugal. It now sells direct to consumers in 16 countries across Europe, including Austria, France, Germany, Spain, and the UK. As part of the investment, KoRo will expand to Greece and the Czech Republic.
The goal is to create transparent supply chains by sourcing ingredients directly from the producers, implementing efficient logistic processes and selecting simple designed bulk packaging solutions. By doing so KoRo makes high-quality food available to everyone at fair prices and plans to save 100 tonnes of plastic packaging in 2022.
The company now has experience in quickly launching new shops, building a customer base and retaining customers in the long term. This results in sales increases in some markets of up to 500 percent in just one year. The country with the most orders outside of the DACH area is France, with around 7,000 packages shipped to France every month. In total over two million orders were shipped in 2021.
“We are pleased to have new investors on board who bring valuable long-term industry knowledge and expertise in the food and tech segment, which will help KoRo to become Europe’s leading brand for high-quality natural food with transparent supply chains”, said Constantinos Calios, CEO and co-founder of KoRo.
“We will use the fresh capital to further accelerate growth both in Europe and internationally, with our fantastic team being the backbone of KoRo's success. We currently ship to 16 EU countries and plan to open the online store in Greece and the Czech Republic soon. With the investment of our new VCs we also want to expand our product portfolio from 1,250 SKU’s to 2,000 by the end of this year.”
“At Five Seasons Ventures we look for outstanding foodtech companies throughout Europe and we have been following KoRo for a while.” said Ivan Farneti, Managing Partners at Five Seasons Ventures. "The management team's exceptional job is the result of a tremendous passion for product quality and value-for-money for consumers, and the ability to implement scalable processes throughout the business, from marketing, to operations, to procurement, etc. This business can scale to become a leading new brand for healthy food in Europe".
KoRo was founded in 2014 in Berlin, Germany and was developed by Constantinos Calios and Piran Asci; since 2020, Florian Schwenkert has complemented the management team. The company now employs almost 300 people.
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Published on: 23rd March 2022
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