Olio, a London UK-based community sustainability app, raised $43M in Series B funding.
The round was led by VNV Global and Lugard Road Capital with participation from Accel, Octopus Ventures, Rubio, Jason Stockwood, Lord Waheed Alli, DX Ventures, Alumni Ventures and Flight Ventures.
Led by co-founders Tessa Clarke and Saasha Celestial-One, Olio provides an app that is used to give away unwanted food and other household items to neighbours, for free, with the aim of reducing waste in the home and helping people to consume locally and sustainably. Since its launch five years ago, the company has broadened its offer to include the free sharing of household items such as toiletries, kitchen appliances, books, clothes and toys. It has passed the milestone of over 4.5 million community members, with half of these based in the UK.
Olio intends to use the funds to accelerate its international expansion plans, focusing on Latin American, Northern European, and Asian markets, and quickly grow the Food Waste Heroes Programme, which supports food businesses and restaurants around the world in their quest to achieve zero food waste locations.
The company has over 30,000 Food Waste Heroes, who are trained members of the community collecting and redistributing unsold or unserved food from businesses such as Pret A Manger, Compass Catering, Costa Coffee and Elior. Last year, Tesco became the latest retailer to join the scheme, with 2,700 UK stores now redistributing surplus food nearing its sell-by date via the company’s network.
The investment will also be used to scale the team from 40 to 175+ over the next two years.
FinSMEs
06/09/2021