General Catalyst is a venture capital firm that provides early-stage and growth equity investments. The company provides ongoing momentum that accelerates ideas, careers, and companies toward standout success.

General Catalyst

Techstars Ventures (formerly Bullet Time Ventures) is the venture capital arm of Techstars. Bullet Time Ventures is a $150 million fund based in Boulder, Colorado.

Techstars Ventures

Matchstick Ventures supports the creation and growth of early-stage technology companies in rapidly growing yet underserved startup ecosystems. The firm prefers to invest in seed-stage, early-stage, and later-stage companies. The firm seeks to invest in the business products, business services, information technology, and TMT sectors.

Matchstick Ventures

Techstars is a global platform that provides investment and innovation. Through the Techstars Worldwide Entrepreneur Network, founders and their teams connect with other entrepreneurs, experts, mentors, alumni, investors, community leaders, and corporate partners who will help their companies grow. Techstars operates four divisions: Techstars Mentorship-Driven Accelerator Program supercharges success and Techstars Startup Programs inspire, educate, and connect entrepreneurs. Techstars Venture Capital Fund invests in innovative and disruptive companies. Techstars Corporate Innovation Partnerships help brands create products and services. Techstars' accelerator portfolio includes more than 1,000 companies with a market cap of $8.1 billion.

Techstars

Food Retail Ventures invests in early stage food and retail technology companies. Food Retail Ventures uses their industry experience and network to help food and retail technology companies succeed. The company is based in Boston, Massachusetts.

Food Retail Ventures

Cowie Capital Partners is a private equity firm that focuses its investments in real estate properties.

Cowie Capital Partners

S2G Ventures is a food and agriculture venture fund that invests in entrepreneurs whose products and services meet the shifting demands for healthy and sustainable food. The firm's mission is to catalyze innovation to meet consumer demands for healthy, sustainable, and local food. S2G will identify sectors across the food system that are ripe for change, and form a multi-stage portfolio including seed, venture, and growth-stage investments. It seeks to invest in agriculture, ingredients, infrastructure and logistics, food safety and technology, retail and restaurants, and consumer brands. S2G Ventures was established in 2014 and is headquartered in Chicago, Illinois.

S2G Ventures

ArcTern Ventures is a venture capital fund that provides early-stage capital to cleantech companies. The privately-backed venture capital fund provides early-stage capital to companies developing breakthrough ideas in the cleantech sector. The Fund has developed a unique early-stage investment model through its partnership with MaRS, one of the largest innovation centers in the world.

ArcTern Ventures

Flashfood

Flashfood is the App for Grocery's best Deals.  As a certified B-corp, our mission is to Feed Families, not Landfills.  Our marketplace connects Food Retailers in North America who have product that is near-expiry or surplus that may have been destined for waste, and offer it instead to motivated Consumers who want to save serious cash.  B2B2C that has saved consumers over $250B USD and redirected over 150M pounds of food from waste streams.

Based in Canada, Flashfood offers an app that helps customers find groceries that are closer to the expiration date and purchase them at a discount.&nbsp; Flashfood customers can search for stores in their area via the app, browse through deals, and place orders for delivery or pickup.&nbsp;

Tech solutions for achieving global anti-wastage targets

Food Waste

Flashfood Unveils New Redesigned App: Flashfood 3.0; Jordan Schenck Comments

Giant Food

The Giant Company and Flashfood will collaborate to allow customers to purchase pershable and non-perishable goods via Flashfood app at a discounted price

These startups ensure work to reroute surplus food to different sets of end-users including charity organizations and consumers seeking discounted items. This segment mainly consists of on-demand online platforms that connect producers, retailers, and restaurants with consumers via mobile app.

Meijer

Meijer and Flashfood app will collaborate to roll out Flashfood app across all Meijer retail stores during 2021

To expand a pilot program that reduced in-store food waste by over 10% to all Meijer stores, enabling customers to purchase food nearing its sell-by date at up to 50% off through the Flashfood app.

Meijer and Flashfood collaborates to allow customers to purchase goods nearing its best-buy date from Meijer Stores using the Flashfood app

Based in Canada, Flashfood offers an app that helps customers find groceries that are closer to the expiration date and purchase them at a discount.&nbsp; Flashfood customers can search for stores in their area via the app, browse through deals, and place orders for delivery or pickup.&nbsp;As of&nbsp;2024, the app reportedly had over one million downloads. Flashfoods claimed to have sold over&nbsp;100 million lbs of food across more than&nbsp;2,000 locations throughout the US and Canada.&nbsp;Flashfood also claimed that it saved over USD 280 million in shopper savings and sold over 3 million produce boxes.Key customers and partnershipsThe app was piloted by US retailer Meijer in November 2019, which reportedly allowed Meijer to reduce food waste by 10% and thus went on to launch the FlashFood app across all of its stores in the Midwest. As of&nbsp;2024, the Flashfood app was available in 240 Meijer supercenters.&nbsp;Other retail partners in the US include Hy-Vee (February 2019),&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/3585">The Giant Company&nbsp;</a>(May 2020), Tops Friendly Market (October 2020), Price Rite Marketplace (August 2021),&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/5502">Independent Grocers Alliance&nbsp;</a>stores (September 2021), and&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/8428">SpartanNash</a> (February 2022). More specifically, as of July 2021, the app was used by&nbsp; 44 Tops stores and has diverted more than 150,00 pounds of food waste from landfills. In 2021, Flashfoods partnered with Stop &amp; Shop and as of&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/15916">January 2023</a>, expanded to ~125 Stop &amp; Shop stores. In&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16432">February 2023</a>, Flashfood partnered with a Canadian pet store Ren's Pets, to roll out Flashfood at Ren's Pets locations.In March 2024, Flashfood partnered with The Save Mart Companies to connect customers with fresh produce, meat, and groceries through the Flashfood app under the Save Mart, Lucky and FoodMaxx stores across the West Coast of the US.

Apeel Sciences is a California-based food technology company that produces edible coatings made of plant materials that extend the lifetime of fruits by 2x–3x to prevent food wastage in regions where refrigeration is scarce.&nbsp;The coatings are intended for use on fruits and vegetables, with a primary focus on avocados, apples, mangos, cucumbers, and citrus fruits.&nbsp;According to the company, US retailers that used Apeel experienced a 50% reduction in waste alongside a 5%–10% growth in sales on average. As of&nbsp;April 2024, Apeel Sciences reported to have saved&nbsp;over&nbsp;60 million pieces of produce from going to waste at retail stores by partnering with small family-owned farmers, local organic growers, grocery stores, and large food brands.&nbsp;As of October&nbsp;2024, the company was offering its solution to a network of 30 suppliers and 40 retailers across eight countries, including the US, UK, Spain, Netherlands, and Kenya. The company focuses on expanding its market presence across North America and the EU.In May 2020, Apeel announced plans to expand to Sub-Saharan Africa, Central, and South America—all regions where food wastage was increasing.&nbsp;Following this, Apeel expanded to Sub-Saharan Africa in 2022 and began its expansion to South America in 2024.In May 2021, Apeel Sciences acquired&nbsp;the&nbsp;startup Impact Vision for an undisclosed amount. Impact Vision’s technology allows suppliers to see inside their fresh produce and ultimately reduce post-harvest loss and optimize distribution while continuing to extend shelf life.&nbsp;Key customers and partnerships&nbsp;Apeel has partnered with various distributors for the distribution of its avocados, including The Kroger Company in September 2018 for Cincinnati, Calavo Growers in January 2021, and Nature’s Pride for Europe in March 2021.&nbsp;The company also collaborated with Topline Farms in February 2023 for the development of the Apeel-Protected Mini Cucumber and licensed its coating technology to Limoneira in May 2023 for use on lemons.&nbsp;

Apeel Sciences

Shelf Engine provides demand forecasting tools,&nbsp;which leverage AI and machine learning, for perishable food items to reduce inefficiencies in the ordering system and minimize overall costs. According to Shelf Engine, more than 30% of highly perishable foods in grocery stores such as meat and vegetables expire before the sell-by date. Shelf Engine’s scan-based trade (SBT) technology guarantees sales and pays for any items that remain unsold. Via the SBT, Shelf Engine manages orders, pays vendors, and only charges the retailer for what sells while still paying suppliers for their full order and increasing its accuracy over time. Shelf generates revenue by charging a markup on the product from the vendor to the retailer.As of October 2024, Shelf Engine operated in more than 3,000 grocery stores and claimed to increase profit margins by more than 50% by reducing food waste by as much as 32%.&nbsp;Shelf Engine also reported that it prevented 5.2 million lbs of food wastage, decreased 8,200 tons of CO2, and saved 500 million gallons of water.Key customers and partnershipsIn January 2024, Shelf Engine partnered with Dollar General to implement fully automated AI-powered ordering for produce, aiming to enhance inventory management and reduce food waste across Dollar General's stores. This collaboration would leverage Shelf Engine's technology to optimize ordering processes and improve the freshness of perishable items.Shelf Engine also worked with supermarket and grocery chains Whole Foods, Target, Kroger, Walmart, Ralphs, Harmons, and Bi‑Rite to manage orders and reduce food waste.

Shelf Engine

Afresh began as a research project in 2017 to develop AI-powered software that optimizes the entire food supply chain. Specifically, the company offers an in-store solution for grocery stores that applies artificial intelligence to manage the freshness of food. According to the company, the implementation of its technology has led to a 25%–45% reduction of in-store food waste and increased gross margin of fresh produce sales by 4 percentage points. The company generates revenue under a SaaS model. In&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/16835">March 2023,</a> the company expanded into fresh departments, including meat, seafood, deli, and food service.As of&nbsp;October 2024, the company’s technology was deployed across 3,000 stores in 40 states in the US and it reported that it was able to triple its customer base in 2021.&nbsp;Afresh also reported that it prevented 44 million lbs of food wastage as of 2024 while reducing 24 million kg of CO2 emissions and saving 886 million gallons of water.Key customers and partnershipsSome of Afresh's key customers include Fresh Thyme Market, WinCo Foods, and Heinen’s. In 2019, the company also reported that it had established partnerships with three US grocery chains, each with more than 100 stores in operation.&nbsp;&nbsp;The company also collaborated with Bashas’ Supermarkets Inc. (a chain of grocery stores based in North America with over 100 stores) in September 2021 and New Season Market (a chain of 19 privately owned grocery stores) in October 2021 to pilot the “Afresh AI-driven software solution” at selected stores.In December 2022, Afresh partnered with SpartanNash to pilot the AI-powered Afresh platform at 10 of SpartanNash’s Family Fare grocery stores.&nbsp;&nbsp;In&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/15786">January 2023</a>, Afresh and Albertsons Companies announced the completion of an enterprise rollout of the Afresh predictive ordering and inventory management platform.&nbsp;Afresh also partnered with Albertsons Companies again in October 2024 for the launch of Afresh DC Forecasts, where Albertsons was its first customer.

AFresh

UK-based Winnow Solutions identifies and measures waste in commercial kitchens. The company records the reason for the waste, calculates the value of the wasted food, and keeps track of this data in the cloud. The company’s self-titled product shares technology with autonomous vehicles, using cameras to record and learn about food being wasted and calculate the financial and environmental cost of this discarded food. Winnow Vision also provides a Waste Monitor solution to help kitchen staff track how and what food is wasted to adjust their spending on food ingredients and eliminate overproduction.As of October 2024, Winnow Solutions reported that it had annually saved over 50 million meals, reduced 87,000 tons of CO2, and saved USD 70 million for customers.Key customers and partnershipsWinnow’s customers include the catering company&nbsp;<a href="https://sp-edge.com/updates/5386">ISS</a> and hotels such as Accor, Fairmont, The Westin, Four Seasons, and Hilton Tokyo Bay.&nbsp;In September 2023, Winnow Solutions partnered with Ne’ma, the UAE’s National Food Loss and Waste Initiative, to support Ne’ma with data, benchmarking, and best practices for the hotels, restaurants, and catering (HoReCa) sector.&nbsp; Following this, Winnow was selected as a preferred food waste management vendor by Dayblink GPO in November 2023.

Winnow Solutions

Hazel Technologies is a United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)-funded technology company that develops packaging that releases vapors that slow the aging process and prevent fungus or decay. Its solution is claimed to double the shelf life of produce. Hazel operates a B2B business that targets large enterprises. The company has reported treating&nbsp;5 billion lbs of produce as of October 2024, saving about 4 billion lbs from going bad. The company has a target to save one billion&nbsp;lbs of produce from going to waste by the end of 2021. Hazel operates in&nbsp;13 countries&nbsp;across the US, South America, and Europe, as of October 2024.&nbsp;Hazel works with around 250 food service and produce companies including the likes of Sysco, Mission Produce, Zespri, Calavo, and Oppy.&nbsp;As of October 2024, the company offers Hazel Endure, its antimicrobial packaging for berries, grapes, and other fruit, which uses an anti-fungal pad to extend the shelf life and quality of fruits and other produce.Key customers and partnershipsHazel Technologies has formed several partnerships to reduce food waste and extend the shelf life of various produce. These included collaborations with Mission Produce for avocados in July 2020, Migiva Group for grape trials in March 2021, Specialty Crop Company for figs and Symms Fruit for apples in May 2021, Oppy and Brar Farms for California-grown table grapes in July 2022, and Kliewer Farms for kiwifruit in November 2022.

Hazel Technologies

Startups that prevent food wastage by prolonging the lifetime of food or better managing food production through the supply chain. Companies that develop products such as sanitizers, containers, and machines that allow food to stay fresh longer are included here. Startups that develop algorithms to determine food preservation strategies are also included.

Startups that recycle food waste for industrial uses such as soil enrichment.

Startups that recycle food waste into edible food and beverages.

Solutions that keep food waste out of landfills

Recycling and upcycling food waste to keep them out of landfills

IoT-enabled waste prevention techniques for purposes such as longer shelf-life and inventory management

Waste prevention analysis platforms use AI/ML

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 Canadian startup, Flashfood, has announced significant changes to its executive team. Nicholas Bertram has been appointed as CEO and Jordan Schenck as chief customer officer (CCO). Meanwhile, founder Josh Domingues will be the new executive chairman.
 Bertram, with over twenty years in retail transformation, arrived at Flashfood a year ago. Whereas, Schenck headed the design of the new brand, including a new icon, logo, and color scheme, in collaboration with the design and branding agency PORTO ROCHA.

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Flashfood

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