Investors poured a record-breaking $15.2 billion into Asia-Pacific agrifoodtech startups in 2021; in 2022, the region continues to break records.
A couple mega-deals of $100 million and over are responsible for the bulk of ghost kitchen investment from the last 12 months.
Ghost kitchens operator from Uber founder Travis Kalanick, CloudKitchens, raised a whopping $850m in 2021, including backing from Microsoft.
Upstream and downstream investment in Europe agrifoodtech were almost on par with one another last year, though upstream closed more deals.
Consumer-facing downstrream technologies bagged $32 billion in VC investment in 2021; the bulk of it was thanks to a few big eGrocery deals.
Symbotic said it’ll use the proceeds to “accelerate its growth plans” and “efficiently deliver on its contracted backlog.”
CEO Anthony Tan said the company will invest part of the proceeds into mapping tech in order to “deliver groceries more efficiently.”
The Singaporean salad chain sees digitalization, cloud kitchens, and plant-based proteins as the way to get there.
The US startup brings work-from-home to the gig economy, giving drive-thru restaurants a virtual, on-demand workforce, writes AgFunder partner Manuel Gonzalez.
It distinguishes itself from other robo-delivery startups by relying on remote drivers instead of automation to pilot its robots through the streets.
The UK food delivery app also said it will pay its self-employed drivers IPO bonuses of up to $13,827 each.
Like many of its peers, the Finnish food delivery app has diversified into groceries and other goods during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Pushing further into food e-commerce, Singapore-based Grab has opened its first ‘dark store’ as negotiations with Indonesian archrival Gojek gather pace.
The UK firm is buying two US startups, with CEO Tim Steiner seeing “significant opportunities” in robotic manipulation solutions for online retail and logistics.
Robinhood is going head to head with unicorns Gojek and Grab – but believes it can better serve “the small guys” who run most of kingdom’s restaurants.
The San Francisco startup has onboarded 300 new businesses during the pandemic as food retailers scramble to offer consumers new e-commerce options.
Sequoia Capital and Alpha JWC Ventures co-led the round, which brings the B2B marketplace’s total funding to $36 million in just 15 months.
Uber is pulling out of the food delivery business in 7 countries to “reinvest… in priority markets.” Here are some clues as to where it should refocus.
Moka, a Jakarta-based startup offering POS software for food merchants, could help the on-demand ‘super app’ build out its service offering to restaurants.
Sponsored
Iowa State University builds innovative public private partnerships for a more sustainable future