KoRo’s Post

Reflecting on an incredible Experience at KoRo 👋 A couple of months ago, I was contacted by a well-known VC fund specialized in Food tech to explore potential collaboration for one of their start-ups. That’s how I met KoRo, one of the top brand and fast-growing start-ups in the Food Tech! I was really lucky to meet them and help on building strategic roadmaps for Netherlands and Italy for a while 🌍 What followed was an 🌟 incredible learning experience 🌟 and here are a few highlights based on the pitfalls most start-ups encounter: ✅ The Culture challenge « Culture eats strategy for breakfast » (Peter Drucker…and regularly Jean Moreau 😉 ). No matter how great your strategy is, your plan will fail if your culture doesn’t encourage people to implement it. The thing is, from 1 to 100 employees, from 0 to 100m€, you need to adapt your culture constantly. But, as culture is not easy to define (rituals, symbols, power structures...), as founders rarely want it to change, the statu quo is often the rule…and can dramatically damage your performance in the mid-term. I was very impressed by the way people at KoRo are engaged in their company’s culture and the job done around redefining leadership principles, keeping everybody on-board and aligned with strategy 🚢 ✅ The Scale challenge Or how to « Scale your business without scaling your problems ». Small problems remain small in the early stage of development, but when scaling, BOOM! 💥 The small default in your tech that was « good enough », the absence of contracts with your key suppliers -again « good enough» in your seed/A-serie, are now a thorn in the side that cause extra-work, stress, directly impacting revenues. The way-out? Team-work from Top to Bottom. I’ve seen KoRo in action working together to correct and adjust in a very efficient way, displaying amazing solidarity and collective effort. ✅ The Juniority challenge  Or "How do you lead a company with 200+ employees, with a 27-years-old average age ?" As an ex start-up executive, I’ve seen Juniority in the teams as both refreshing and exhausting, especially for managers. Lack of autonomy, under (or over) self-confidence, constant training required on hard and soft-skills…might be difficult to manage. But quality of these junior people make the difference: at KoRo I’ve seen juniors so motivated, and bold, learning so fast, that they were gaining the equivalent of one year of experience in a couple of weeks! Trust and empowerment can do miracles...and juniority suddenly turns into strength 💪 I appreciated every single minute working with KoRo 💌 And with their recent fundraising, no doubt the best is yet to come for KoRo I now know where to buy on-line « better for me » food (www.koro.fr), and am looking forward finding my favorite KoRo products on the French retailers' shelves! Louisa Moulai Christine Hamel Francois Alarcon Maël Le Moal

🚀 The latest The Consumer VC Roundup! 📈 • 🍫 Mars has agreed to acquire snack manufacturer Kellanova for $35.9 billion, marking the largest food and beverage deal since Kraft Heinz's $45 billion merger in 2015. • 🍺 Tilray Brands, Inc. has agreed to acquire four craft beer makers from Molson Coors Beverage Company • 🛍️ ASOS.com, the online fashion retailer, has introduced an AI chatbot named Nibble on its site, enabling customers to negotiate prices. • ⛲ Canopy, the DTC humidifier and showerhead startup, is launching in over 100 SEPHORA locations nationwide. 💵 HighPost Capital, led by Mark Bezos and David Moross, has launched a new venture capital arm called HIPstr, with a debut $100 million fund Thank you to Propeller Industries for being our newsletter partner. Propeller Industries is the leading strategic finance and accounting partner for venture-stage companies. Thinking about profitability, extending your runway, and improving efficiency in your operations? Propeller’s fractional model offers a dynamic solution that provides a cost-effective alternative to hiring full-time finance talent. For the full roundup, subscribe in the comments below 👇👇👇 #Roundup #CPG #VentureCapital #Fundraising #ConsumerBrands #Newsletter #MarketTrends #FundingNews #ProductLaunches #TheConsumerVC #ConsumerVC

Five of the world’s leading grocery retailers have come together to establish a pioneering collaborative VC fund, W23 Global. The fund will seek to invest in innovative startups and scaleups that deploy technology to enhance customer experiences, transform the grocery value chain and address the sector’s sustainability challenges. W23 Global investor partners include Ahold Delhaize (US, Europe, Indonesia), Tesco (UK, ROI, Europe), Woolworths Group (Australia, New Zealand), Empire Co. Ltd./Sobeys Inc. (Canada) and The Shoprite Group of Companies (Africa). Each retailer is an equal funder and partner in W23 Global, while their CEOs will sit on the investment committee. | Progressive Grocer https://lnkd.in/g4NpBaJY #retail #retailers #grocery #innovation #supermarkets #technology

YPOG advised REWE Group as new investor on the $61 million Series B financing round of the Berlin-based FoodTech start-up Formo. The new financing round includes existing investors such as FoodLabs, EQT Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, Happiness Capital | Certified B Corp, Elevat3 Capital , and Grazia Equity as well as new investors such as SAZABY LEAGUE,Ltd. (株)サザビーリーグ, SevenVentures, Woodline Partners LP , and The Nature Conservancy.   The company intends to use the newly raised capital to expand internationally and diversify its product range.   Congratulations to our client and all parties involved!   The YPOG team was led by Johannes Janning, and included Laura Franke, Boris Schinzel, LL.M. (EMLE), Nina Ahlert, Dr. Benedikt Flöter, Dr. Christoph Cordes, and Farina Weber.   The REWE Group in-house team was led by Dr. Ulrich Fleischer (Senior Legal Counsel - M&A and Financing). ➡ Link to the press release in the comments below.   #PartnersOfGamechangers #Transactions #VentureCapital #Growth

Breaking! Venture capital firm Siddhi Capital raised $135 million for its second fund, which it will invest in food and beverage CPG brands with a mass appeal and food-tech companies creating novel ingredients and improving food-manufacturing infrastructure. The company has already deployed capital from Fund II, investing in brands like Mid-Day Squares, Magic Spoon, Momofuku, Aura Bora, Ark Biotech and more. In my latest FoodNavigator-USA article, I sat down with one of the firm’s Co-founders Melissa Facchina to discuss the recent round, the state of venture capital funding and how she is working to recreate the investor and investee dynamic. Click through to read more! #FoodandBeverageIndustry #VCfunding #FoodNews #BeverageNews #CPGstartups #GrowthEquity #FundingNews #CPGBusiness

Did you know that corporate venture capital (CVC) total deal value has increased more than tenfold over the past decade? CVC is essentially a practice where a large corporate entity takes an equity stake in a small but innovative (or specialist) company with the objective of gaining a specific competitive advantage. When most people familiar with CVC think about the concept, they tend to beeline towards large tech companies, but this type of investing is done by every sector in the economy...and that includes retailers and CPG companies! Walmart = Walmart Ventures Unilever = Unilever Ventures L'Oréal = L'Oreal BOLD Ventures Ulta Beauty = Prisma Ventures ...and the list goes on and on! But CVC (and/or brand incubators) have spiked in popularity as these companies are having to evolve more rapidly to meet the needs of customers. #strategy #trends #markets #fmcg #cpg #food #beverages #finance #investing #mergersandacquisitions #sportsnutrition #supplements #innovation #productdevelopment #branding #marketing #merchandising #retailing #retail #business #businessintelligence #entrepreneurship #consultants

Looking for advice on scaling your #startup to reach more consumers and earn more corporate venture funding? My colleague Richie Gray has you covered. Just don't ask him about that brogue! (Credit: Laura Shulman)

#Startup brands are rethinking their exit roadmaps, which, more and more, come down to being acquired by a larger company. M&A remains frequent, thanks to fire sales of struggling companies in the past year. But gone are the days when a strategic acquirer like Unilever would shell out $1 billion on a startup simply because it’s a direct-to-consumer brand. And, lackluster #IPO debuts from previous #DTC darlings like Casper and Allbirds within the past four years have also soured the prospects of going public for DTC brands. #cpg Read more: https://buff.ly/3U2o0Ua

no more exits for cpg brands? 👀🙃 my thoughts… I saw a panel at an investor event in SF and this CPG conglomerate leader (I don’t name names) said some wild stuff about $25m brands not being “acquirable” in today’s environment. Well - he’s tryna keep his costs down by downplaying successful brands. Also, if he’s being real, he’s missing out on a lot of easy wins when a big acquirer with existing distribution networks can push these brands through new channels and cover his cost of acquisition pretty quickly. what do yall think? #brand #siete #unilever #startups #sushi #airport

Walko Food’s NIC, a food processing company, has mopped up $20 million in a new funding round under the observation of existing investor Jungle Ventures. In less than 12 months, this investment is the second one from Jungle Ventures with Walko. In May last year, this Singapore-based VC company led a $11 million round in Walko. Know more on - https://bit.ly/4bNb50A WALKO FOOD COMPANY PRIVATE LIMITED, Vishal P. Surti, Neeraj Garg #WalkoFood #NIC #FoodProcessing #JungleVentures #VentureCapital #FundingNews #Investment #InvestorNews #IPO #VentureCapitalists #YourFirstStartup