KoRo raises €50M Series B to continue its explosive growth

• KoRo Handels GmbH (KoRo) has raised a €50M funding round, led by venture capital firm HV Capital, to sustain KoRo’s incredible 12x growth of the last three years.
• New investors in this round also include foodtech specialist Five Season Ventures and global investment platform, Partech.
• KoRo sells high-quality and long-life food products directly to consumers in 16 countries in Europe. 
• KoRo’s vision is to become Europe’s leading brand for high-quality natural food with transparent supply chains.
  

Berlin, 23rd March 2022: Fast-growing natural food company KoRo has today announced a €50M funding round, led by venture capital firm HV Capital, alongside new investors, foodtech specialist Five Seasons Ventures and global investment platform, Partech. 

The €50M Series B is a combination of primary and secondary investment, and venture debt. The new funding will be used to expand the product portfolio, to develop new marketing channels and to further expand the team and the business internationally.

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 - generating revenues of over €60M. 

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

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. By doing so KoRo makes high-quality food available to everyone at fair prices and plans to save 100 tonnes of plastic packaging in 2022.

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 percent in just one year. The country with the most orders outside of the DACH area is France, with around 7,000 packages shipped to France every month. In total over two million orders were shipped in 2021.

“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. 

“We will use the fresh capital to further accelerate growth both in Europe and internationally, with our fantastic 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 SKU’s to 2,000 by the end of this year.” 
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 Partner 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. This business can scale to become a leading new brand for healthy food in Europe". 
"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.
KoRo was founded in 2014 in Berlin, Germany and was developed by Constantinos Calios and Piran Asci; since 2020, Florian Schwenkert has complemented the management team. KoRo now employs almost 300 people.
For more information go to https://www.korodrogerie.de/en/

About KoRo
KoRo reinvents retail. By bypassing trade levels, efficient processes and bulk packaging simply designed, the brand makes 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’s vision is to become Europe’s leading supplier of food and products by consistently implementing its five basic principles: quality, short supply chains, bulk packaging, fair prices and transparency. Consumers should be able to understand KoRo’s trade processes and decisions through a maximum of transparency, in order to bring them closer to producers and products. For this reason, product descriptions already include comprehensive information on price trends, origin, ingredients and nutrients. The declared goal for the future is to vertically integrate all products as far as possible into the original source and thus create a maximum of transparency. KoRo was founded in 2014 in Berlin/Germany and was developed by Constantinos Calios and Piran Asci; since 2020, Florian Schwenkert has complemented the management team. KoRo now employs around 300 people.www.korodrogerie.de
Contact:Natalie Wendt (she/her) Public Relations at KoRopresse@korodrogerie.de | + 49 151 42051506
About Partech
Born in San Francisco and Paris, Partech is one of the most active tech investors in the world, bringing together capital, operational experience, and strategic support for entrepreneurs at seed, venture and growth stages. The current portfolio includes 200+ companies in more than 30 countries, of which 14 are valued at more than $1B: Alan, Bolt, Cazoo, Jellysmack, Made.com, ManoMano, Merama, People.ai, Rohlik, Sorare, Toss, Wave, WorldRemit, Xendit.  ParTech is the leading VC of France.www.partechpartners.com

Contact:

Isabelle Tresson, itresson@partechpartners.com | +33 7 86 08 85 85