Berlin-based natural food company KoRo raises €50M from HV Capital, Partech, others

Berlin-based KoRo, a fast-growing D2C foodtech startup that offers healthy and long-lasting food products, announced on Wednesday that it has secured €50M in its Series B round of funding. 

Constantinos Calios, co-founder of KoRo, says, “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.”

Investors in this round

A mix of primary, secondary and venture debt funding was led by venture capital firm HV Capital, alongside new investors foodtech specialist Five Seasons Ventures and global investment platform, Partech.

Speaking on the investment into KoRo, Alexander Joel-Carbonell, HV Capital Growth co-lead, says, “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 more than 300B in GMV. With its leading position in Germany, KoRo is perfectly positioned to create a Europe-wide food powerhouse.”

Capital utilisation

KoRo says that the funds will be used to expand the product portfolio, develop new marketing channels, and further expand the team and the business internationally.

In 2021, KoRo launched in 10 new markets, including Ireland, Sweden, Denmark and Portugal. It sells directly to consumers in 16 countries across Europe, including Austria, France, Germany, Spain, and the UK. And as part of the investment, KoRo will now expand to Greece and the Czech Republic. 

Constantinos Calios, co-founder of KoRo, adds, “We will use the fresh capital to further accelerate growth both in Europe and internationally, with our team being the backbone of KoRo’s success. We currently ship to 16 EU countries and plan to open the online store in Greece and the Czech Republic soon. With the investment of our new VCs, we also want to expand our product portfolio from 1,250 SKUs to 2,000 by the end of this year.”

In 2021, the company served more than 500,000 consumers and generated revenues of over €60M. In total, over two million orders were shipped in 2021.

“D2C brand for affordable high-quality food”

KoRo was founded in 2014 and was developed by Constantinos Calios and Piran Asci, and Florian Schwenkert, who joined the management team in 2020. The company’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 claims to make high-quality food available to everyone at fair prices and plans to save 100 tonnes of plastic packaging in 2022.

The company’s product range includes a wide variety of long-life, natural and processed foods as well as kitchen utensils, cooking accessories and hygiene products. Its vision is to become Europe’s leading supplier of food and products by consistently implementing five basic principles: quality, short supply chains, bulk packaging, fair prices and transparency.

With 300 employees, 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 per cent in just one year, claims the company. The country with the most orders outside of the DACH area is France, with around 7,000 packages shipped to France every month.

Currently, KoRo is operational in Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK.