Consumers are increasingly on the lookout for a healthy and sustainable diet, however, they struggle with the complexity of food choices. This is where Limburg-based Verdify looks to make a difference. It is a foodtech startup that develops digital technology for healthy and sustainable eating.
Verdify raises fresh funds
In a recent development, the provider of an AI-based recipe analytic solution for the food industry, announced that it has raised €1.3M in a fresh round of funding from Brightlands Venture Partners, private investment firm Joles BV, and the company’s founders.
Kim de Boer, Partner at Brightlands Venture Partners says, “We believe Verdify responds to a clear and logical market need in personalised nutrition. This is a fast scalable business in which Verdify is a forerunner. We believe that the interaction of the company with the Brightlands ecosystem in the field of personalised nutrition and available AI knowledge will be beneficial for the company’s time to market and chances of success.”
The current round follows Verdify’s last year’s funding of €750K for developing and launching its Swapmeals recipe platform in the UK and the Netherlands – Swapmeals enables consumers to get tailored meal inspiration based on personal nutrition profiles.
Funds for growth
The proceeds from this round will help the company to scale up its Swapmeals platform, including the introduction of the concept into the healthcare domain. This will enable consumers to receive nutritional advice from dietitians and medical professionals directly in their Verdify nutrition profile.
Furthermore, it will be possible to enrich the profile with data from wearables and biomarker tests. Besides that, Verdify can also support companies in the food industry by promoting their brands in personalised recipes on Swapmeals – creating a podium for products that Verdify endorses.
Speaking on the development, Jochem Bossenbroek, CEO at Verdify says, “In our endeavour to create a lasting impact on people’s lives through healthy and sustainable eating we have found a strong companion in Brightlands Venture Partners. With the new investment and access to this innovative ecosystem, we can not only scale up, but also build a bridge between the healthcare domain and the food sector.”
“Personalised nutrition”
Founded in 2020 by Jochem Bossenbroek and Sandrin Bergheanu, Verdify’s mission is to make healthy and sustainable eating easy and enjoyable for everyone, everywhere using “true personalisation”. It does that through its platform Swapmeals.com.
The company claims that Swapmeals offers an enabling environment where healthy and sustainable food choice becomes the default. Through the platform, personal parameters such as health conditions, food allergies, activity levels, lifestyle, location, and taste preferences can be factored in.
The personal nutrition profiles can be created by consumers on the Verdify website and activated on Swapmeals.com to find fully personalised and shoppable recipes. The platform’s recipe personalisation engine can map the composition of virtually all recipes on the internet and tailor them according to consumer nutrition profiles.
A proprietary swapping algorithm replaces non-matching ingredients with suitable alternatives while another algorithm ‘rewrites’ the recipe instructions according to the new composition. The software makes sure the result is still tasty and nutritious.
In addition, Verdify can enable personalisation on any other recipe platform with its engine, as well as link recipes to the digital shopping basket of local retailers.