German startup aims to digitise the food supply chain

Choco provides a service for restaurants and suppliers to digitise ordering workflow and better adapt to the changing market conditions accelerated by COVID

Spotted: Berlin-based software company Choco, which aims to digitise the food supply chain with ordering software for restaurants and their suppliers, has announced the closing of a $100 (around €85) million in Series B funding led, by Left Lane Capital.   

The new round follows their two-part Series A funding, in which they raised a total of $63.7 (€54) million between 2019 and 2020.   

Choco provides a service for restaurants and suppliers to digitise ordering workflow and communications. Orders and chats with suppliers are compiled in one single app. Orders are then converted into the supplier’s format of choice — email, WhatsApp, text, fax, and direct ERP integration. The platform is free for restaurants and suppliers, with additional paid features available. 

Choco CEO Daniel Khachab told TechCrunch that during the COVID-19 pandemic, Choco has allowed operators to adapt to the changing market conditions with greater efficiency around procurement processes and reduce expenses. According to the company, their orders quadrupled on the platform during the past year, with an increase in gross merchandise value from $230 (€195) million to $900 (€763) million. 

With the fundamental purpose of the company being to make the food supply chain more transparent and sustainable, they carried out 14 months of research on food waste. Choco’s research found that food waste played a leading role in other global problems, causes deforestation and is the third-largest driver of climate change. 

“It makes sense to try and solve it,” he added. “The food system is highly fragile, and what was shown in the first and second waves of the pandemic is how fragile and inflexible it was. It made the industry realise that it has to step up and that it can’t continue to work on pen and paper,” Choco CEO Daniel Khachab says. 

Choco currently operates in the United States, Germany, France, Spain, Austria and Belgium. The new capital will be used to continue developing the technology, grow their engineering team as well as expand their market to Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. 

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