Collectiv Food raises £12m to ‘build food supply service of the future'
Collectiv Food has raised £12m in its Series A funding round towards developing its delivery and sourcing models and expansion.
The round was led by VNV Global, along with VisVires New Protein (VVNP), Octopus Ventures, Norrsken VC and existing investors such as Partech, Colle Capital and Mustard Seed, and was the largest recorded Series A for a managed B2B food marketplace in Europe.
Launched in 2019, Collectiv so far operates in the UK and France, with customers including Big Mamma Group, Dirty Bones, Megan's, Crussh, Butchies, Cocotte and Tossed.
Collectiv operates by sourcing produce directly from a network of thousands of producers and delivering to professional kitchens, using points of distribution in disused city locations to cut CO2 emissions by up to 50% compared to traditional methods.
It also sells on demand, rather than by catalogue, selecting producers to match buyers' needs. The model offers transparency and traceability, with no relabelling or hiding producers' brands, and the Series A funding will allow further development of Collectiv's Producer Sustainability Index, providing ratings on each producer and enabling better informed decisions for customers.
Collectiv founder Jeremy Hibbert-Garibaldi said: "It's a really exciting time for Collectiv Food – we're being pushed by a combination of strong tailwinds: end-consumers demanding a better understanding of provenance; cities implementing air pollution regulations that limit large freight; a post-Covid hospitality industry desperate to improve margins but with limited staff availability to facilitate this in-house. Combined with our innovative model, we're able to set our sights on not only becoming a European leader in food distribution over the next few years, but even a global one."
