Oat drink from the carton is booming. The category of milk substitutes, of which oat drink makes up more than 50% (Gfk, 2022), is growing significantly in Europe and already generated sales of €2.6 billion in 2022 with an expected CAGR of 15% until 2027, according to Statista 2023. However, what many don’t realize is oat drink is 90 % water that is transported across Europe in single-use cartons.
Is in this scenario that German foodtech The Oater has closed a seven-figure pre-seed round. The startup was founded in 2021 by the sisters Sarah and Lisa Nesti, Henrik Burger and Benjamin Auer, with the vision of producing plant-based dairy alternatives in a more sustainable, fresh and experiential way.
The Oater develops appliances for the local production of milk alternatives, such as oat drinks, in the food service industry. It describes its business model as “Oat Drink as a Service,” since the startup not only supplies its customers with the oat drink machine but also with a subscription of the ingredients needed to make Barista Oat Drink inside the machine.
The capital was raised from well-known business angels from the food and tech scene. The lead investor of the round is Rüdiger Koppelmann, who brings excellent industry knowledge to the table as a long-time managing director at SodaStream in France and Germany/Austria. In addition to the angel investment, the start-up has successfully raised six-figure grant funding, including the prestigious €75k WomenTech EU grant for talented and highly educated female founders in the tech sector. With the new capital, The Oater plans to finance the market entry and the first serial production of the oat drink machines.
“I am convinced that The Oater will revolutionize the milk substitute market. The startup does not only have an environmental cause, but also offers excellent product quality, freshness, and taste. With its B2B focus on the food services industry, The Oater responds to the prevailing, strong demand for more freshness, regionality and less packaging waste in this industry,” Rüdiger Koppelmann, lead investor and CEO of SodaStream states.
The Oater defines itself as an impact startup. Its mission: to save 1 billion kilograms of C02 by 2030. An independent lifecycle assessment has shown that The Oater already produces 57% less C02 equivalents than conventional oat drink and 93% less than cow milk.
“We need to move away from single-use packaging and centralized production with long transportation routes, and towards plant-based, sustainable, and fresh alternatives, produced locally. And oat drink is just the start, with this hyper-local production approach, the applications are virtually endless,” Sarah Nesti, founder and CEO said.
The Oater got its start in the Aachen start-up ecosystem around the RWTH university, the alma mater of the engineers Sarah and Benjamin. Lisa and Henrik hold master’s degrees from ESADE in Barcelona and LSE in London respectively and joined the team from abroad. Since 2022, The Oater is based in Cologne, Germany. In August 2023, The Oater begins its pilot phase in selected cafés in Cologne and Berlin. The Barista oat drink has proven convincing and beyond satisfactory in taste and foam in sensory panels as well as barista tests. The Oater will start its first serial production in Germany shortly and the ambitious founding team is looking forward to the following commercial launch.
