Amsterdam-based Karma Kebab, a startup that makes vegetable kebabs based on Dutch celeriac, announced that it has raised €1M in a fresh round of funding from the impact investment fund Phase2.earth.
Capital utilisation
Marcel van der Heijden, Pascal Labrie, and Hidde Stolwijk, co-founders of the company, say that Karma Kebab will use this capital to further expand the product in the Netherlands and roll out its plans for its own catering concept.
Stolwijk explains “Our story started with our own food trucks at festivals. Kebab, beer, friends, fun, music and that wonderful carefree festival feeling are all in the DNA of our brand. All these things are reflected in our own catering concepts, which we have been developing for a number of months. The first location will open in Utrecht at the beginning of 2022 and new locations will soon follow.”
Sustainable festival snack
Karma Kebab was founded in 2018 when founder and chef Pascal Labrie was asked to develop the most sustainable night snack in the world for the Lowlands festival. He came up with a 100 per cent vegetable shawarma based on celeriac – a vegetable that a person can eat raw or cooked. Raw celeriac is common in salads.
The company’s kebab is completely plant-based and is made from celeriac and grains grown in the Netherlands.
Founder Labrie says, “Our mission is to become the largest and most sustainable kebab brand in the world. We do this by developing a horribly tasty product and letting people experience how incredibly tasty plant-based street food can be, while at the same time doing something good for our planet. It’s still fantastic to see that avid carnivores sometimes just can’t believe they’re not eating meat.”
Growth during the pandemic
According to the Amsterdam-based company, despite the problems faced during the Covid-19 pandemic, the young startup witnessed continued growth over the past 18 months.
Van der Heijden explains, “The restrictions imposed on us by corona, both financially and practically, have made us extremely creative. We have been able to develop our product, the branding and the sales channels considerably and have tested many new concepts.”
And this has helped the company to be on the menus of more than 150 restaurants. It is not only available on the shelves of catering wholesalers such as Sligro and Bidfood, but also at various supermarkets, such as DekaMarkt and Coop. In addition, the company is also partnered with UberEats, Gorillas, and HelloFresh for deliveries.
Karma Kebab was a winner of the Horeca Innovation Award and finalist of the Amsterdam Foodpitch 2020. It has also earned the title Marketing Start-up of the Year 2021.
About the investor
The current round of funding comes from the impact investment fund Phase2.earth. The fund was set up in early 2021 by Boudewijn Poelmann, who stepped down after more than 31 years as chairman of the board of Novamedia and the Charity Lotteries, of which the Postcode Lottery is now active in 5 countries.
The firm provides expertise and capital to startups and scale-ups that want to make an impact for a better world.
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