Berlin-based food startup Torg, a platform through which retail and wholesale buyers can connect and collaborate with food and beverage suppliers, has raised €2.7 million in a seed funding found.
The seed funding round was led by Connect Ventures with participation from existing investor FoodLabs, as well as a number of new investors including Sondo, Ventures Together, Sameer Singh and Jonas Meynert.
With the fresh funding, the AI-powered platform is seeking to 'further develop its platform and expand its supplier database, as well as to build more intuitive tools for buyers to save time and make their jobs easier,' it said in a statement.
Torg was founded 14 months ago, and seeks to streamline sourcing processes through supplier discovery, communication, negotiation, and financing. According to the startup, it now boasts the 'largest and most enriched' database of suppliers in the food and beverage arena, claiming to have 'more than ten times' as many manufacturers as food fairs such as Anuga and SIAL.
Finding Manufacturers
“Buyers have few good ways of finding new manufacturers," commented Hans Furuseth, co-founder and CEO at Torg. "They rely on trade fairs which occur once a year and where less than 10% of global suppliers exhibit, or on desktop research, sifting through unverified websites. The market is much bigger than most buyers realise.
“We democratise private label products by opening up the market, creating more transparent supply chains, and putting less known, quality suppliers on the map. Our goal is to create meaningful business connections for both sides of the market. In a way, we're Tinder for sourcing,”
Sourcing Inefficiencies
Furuseth, alongside entrepreneurs Ben Holdham, and Rita Kerbaj (pictured), founded Torg with a view to solving the inefficiencies of the sourcing process, having encountered challenges in their previous careers at firms such as Zalando, Delivery Hero, Just Eat Takeaway, and Farmasiet.
The platform aims to simplify the lives of buyers, allowing them to concentrate on their primary tasks by utilising diverse technologies to streamline tasks that are typically manual and time-consuming.
"[The] platform not only reduces operational burdens but also enables the launch of superior and cheaper private label products, meeting the growing demands of consumers," noted Till Hoelzer, principal at FoodLabs. "Hans and the team have built a best in class sourcing solution. We're eager to support their ongoing efforts to advance industry-leading products”
