Fresh capital for online grocery shop froodies

froodies (www.froodies.de), which claims to be Germany’s first online supermarket for fresh groceries, has received new investment capital in the course of a second round of financing. In addition to the initial investor Sirius Venture, High-Tech Gründerfonds and several business angels have also joined as investors. The start-up company from Düsseldorf is investing the funds in strategic growth and nationwide expansion.

“We believe that froodies, with its decentralized delivery system and its broad, high-quality product range, has an excellent opportunity to tap the still largely unexploited potential of this exciting market,“ says Andreas Quauke, senior investment manager at the High-Tech Gründerfonds. “The simplicity, the user-friendliness and the integration of the process chain of the froodies shops have convinced us and represent the success factors of this business model,“ Quauke added.

froodies GmbH already provides a nationwide home or office delivery service for fresh products like fruit and vegetables, meat, sausages and cheese. The order is delivered within two to three working days via a parcel delivery service in a cooler box to ensure that goods remain fresh. The online food portal with its own chilled counter is thus able to extend the conventional producer-supermarket cold chain on to all German households.

In the near future a personal same day delivery service will gradually be introduced in many cities. The two froodies founders Lutz Preußners and Kai-Uwe Reimers want to utilize the capital gained from the second round of financing to enable the rapid expansion of the the same day delivery service to other cities.

At present Germans spend about 150 billion euros a year on food. Less than one percent of that business is done via the internet, which predominantly serves specialized suppliers like traders of high-quality wines, who do not require an extension of the cooling chain. In recent years, several companies have tried unsuccessfully to enter the online grocery business, each time risking multi-million euro investments. In contrast to its underperforming predecessors, froodies has not set up its own expensive storage facility, but rather works in cooperation with local grocery stores.

About froodies:
froodies is the first online supermarket for fresh groceries. Users can fill their virtual shopping carts with a selection from a full range of produce; everything from fruit and vegetables to sausages and cheese is delivered to homes nationwide in a cooler box. This way the food portal is able to extend the cooling chain from the fresh produce counter in the supermarket to German households. Orders can be placed around the clock; nationwide deliveries are made within two to three working days. In Dortmund and Wuppertal froodies already makes personal same day deliveries, Saturdays included. In the near future same day deliveries will also be made in other major cities. froodies works in cooperation with local grocery stores.

Contact:
froodies GmbH
Düsseldorf
E‑Mail: info@froodies.de,
Web: www.froodies.de

About High-Tech Gründerfonds:
High-Tech Gründerfonds invests risk capital in young, promising technology companies capable of translating promising research findings into entrepeneurial ventures. It is intended that start-ups bring an R&D project as far as the production of a prototype or “Proof of Concept“, or even to market introduction, with the help of assistance from seed funding. High-tech Gründerfonds has participated in the seed funding of froodies with a 500,000 euro investment and in subsequent rounds may invest a total of up to two millions euros per company. Investors in the Public Private Partnership are the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, the KfW banking group and the following six industrial groups: BASF, Deutsche Telekom, Siemens, Robert Bosch, Daimler and Carl Zeiss. High-Tech Gründerfonds has a fund volume of approximately 272 millions euros.

Contact:
High-Tech Gründerfonds Management GmbH
Andreas Quauke
Senior Investmentmanager
Ludwig-Erhard-Allee 2
53175 Bonn
Tel: +49 228 823001-00
Fax: +49 228 823000-50
a.quauke@htgf.de
www.high-tech-gruenderfonds.de