OneThird, an AI-powered food tech company created to address the annual loss of one-third of all food produced due to spoilage, announced the company has raised €2.75M euros ($3M USD) in a late-seed funding round, increasing the total amount of funding raised to date to €5.75M ($6.1M).
The late seed funding was led by Dutch-based impact investor Pymwymic (an acronym for “Put Your Money Where Your Meaning Is Community”), with participation from prior investors Halma Ventures Limited, SHIFT Invest, and Oost NL. OneThird will use the new funding to scale its technology and operations to expand to new markets and support fresh produce supply chains in North America and Europe as the company works to tackle the $1 trillion lost annually to worldwide food waste due to spoilage.
Launched in 2019, it is an AI-powered, near-infrared scanning technology that enables growers, food distributors, retailers, and consumers to accurately predict the shelf life of fresh produce and minimize food waste. The technology currently supports and predicts the shelf life of tomatoes, strawberries, blueberries, and avocados and will extend to a total of ten types of produce, including grapes, bananas, mangoes, and raspberries, by late 2023.
Up to one-third of food brought to market annually is wasted at an estimated cost of $1 trillion, 40% of it is fresh produce. Proven to eliminate up to 25% of waste across the produce supply chain, OneThird’s technology empowers produce supply chain stakeholders with real-time information to help them make smarter decisions, such as optimizing best-before codes, opting to ship locally or within a shorter trucking distance to maintain shelf-life, or choosing to divert produce that would otherwise spoil by turning it into smoothies, dry, frozen products, soups and more.
“Global food waste is both inefficient and a major social justice issue — one that is compounded across multiple touchpoints in the supply chain — from agricultural production all the way to the landfill. The latest seed funding we’ve received will allow us to accelerate the implementation of OneThird’s technology beyond our initial customer base, expand internationally and increase the impact we can create for our customers to help them generate higher ROI and also meet their sustainability and ESG goals,” said Marco Snikkers, CEO and founder of OneThird.
“Increasing food security is key to supporting a growing global population. We’re excited by the possibilities OneThird’s technology presents in tackling the alarming quantities of global food loss across the supply chain,” said Sophie Pickering, Investment Manager at Pymwymic.
For more information:
Mindy M. Hull
Mercury Global Partners for OneThird
Tel.: +1 415 889 9977 (USA)
or +31 6 25 04 76 80 (NL)
Email: [email protected]
www.onethird.io