Fast-growing ecommerce startup KoRo has today taken a bite into a €50 million investment round. The fresh funding was led by venture capital firm HV Capital, alongside new investors, foodtech specialist Five Seasons Ventures and global investment platform, Partech, and represents the potential this young startup has to reinvent the grocery industry.
Founded in Berlin in 2014, KoRo’s 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.
We talked to KoRo founder and CEO Constantinos Calios at the end of 2021 to learn more about their plans for this year and their vision to become Europe’s leading food and goods supplier through a dedication to the core values of quality, short supply chains, bulk packaging, fair prices and transparency. It’s clear the company is on track for the ambitious goal!
Over the course of 2021, KoRo saw more than 500k consumers come to the platform to purchase natural spreads and nut butters, selections of dried fruits, organic ingredients, snacks and superfoods – generating revenues of over €60m.
Further, 2021 also saw the ecommerce firm launch into 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.
KoRo 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% in just one year! The company certainly is experiencing explosive growth at the moment – capitalising off changing trends in consumer habits.
Ivan Farneti, Managing Partners at Five Seasons Ventures commented: “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”.
The fresh funding will be used to expand the product portfolio, to develop new marketing channels and to further expand the team and the business internationally. It represents a big leap towards the goal of becoming Europe’s leading brand for high-quality natural food.
Constantinos Calios, CEO and co-founder of KoRo said: “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.”
Alexander Joel-Carbonell, HV Capital Growth Co-Lead, added: “Within HV’s Growth team, we love to back amazing tech founders with great KPI traction, attractive unit economics and outstanding growth potential given the sizable European grocery sector, the German-market alone has >300bn in GMV. With its leading position in Germany, KoRo is perfectly positioned to create a Europe-wide food powerhouse.”
