Berlin-based KoRo, a direct-to-consumer natural food brand, just secured €50 million in Series B funding. The investment round was led by venture capital firm HV Capital which invested in Payrails alongside participation from new investors foodtech specialist Five Seasons Ventures and global investment platform, Partech that closed second growth fund at $750M. The latest fundraise is a combination of primary and secondary investment, and venture debt.
KoRo will deploy the fresh funds to expand the product portfolio from 1,250 SKU’s to 2,000 by the end of this year. It also plans to develop new marketing channels and further expand the current team of 300 people and the business internationally. KoRo will expand to Greece and the Czech Republic as well.
“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”, said Constantinos Calios, CEO and co-founder of KoRo.
Speaking on the investment into KoRo, Alexander Joel-Carbonell, HV Capital Growth Co-Lead, said “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.”
“At Five Seasons Ventures we look for outstanding foodtech companies throughout Europe and we have been following KoRo for a while.” said Ivan Farneti, Managing Partners at Five Seasons Ventures. “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.”.
“We at Partech have been following the impressive growth of Koro on the German market for almost a year. With our long-term expertise in eCommerce we decided it was the right time to come onboard to support the company in its European expansion” said Jean-Marc Patouillaud, General Partner at Partech.
Europe-wide presence!
In 2021, KoRo launched its services in 10 new markets, including Ireland, Sweden, Denmark and Portugal. Already, the company ships to consumers in 16 European countries, including Austria, France, Germany, Spain, and the UK.
More than 500,000 consumers came to Koro in 2021 to buy delicious natural spreads and nut butters, selections of dried fruits, organic ingredients, snacks and superfoods, thereby enabling the company to generate revenues of over €60 million.
What does KoRo do?
Founded in 2014 in Berlin by Constantinos Calios and Piran Asci, 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.
The company wants to make high-quality food available to everyone at fair prices. The range includes a wide variety of long-life, natural and processed foods as well as kitchen utensils, cooking accessories and hygiene products.
KoRo aims to be Europe’s leading supplier of food and products by consistently implementing five basic principles – quality, short supply chains, bulk packaging, fair prices and transparency. Also, the company’s goal is to vertically integrate all products as far as possible into the original source and create a maximum of transparency.
The startup 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 percent in just one year.
