Food sourcing platform Torg raises €2.7M Seed

Berlin-based B2B startup Torg has raised €2.7M for its Seed round for its platform that connects suppliers of food service products with buyers.

Torg provides a digital marketplace in which the company, using machine learning to boost its supplier discovery, communication, negotiation and financing processes. Having accrued over 100,000 verified suppliers in just 14 months, its database features more than ten times as many manufacturers as the largest food fairs such as Anuga and SIAL.

Founders Hans Kristian Furuseth, Ben Holdham, and Rita Kerbaj conceived of a more efficient, digitsed system after facing difficulties finding and verifying suppliers for private label and foodservice projects in their previous careers at Zalando, Delivery Hero, Just Eat Takeaway, and Farmasiet. The founders noted that “Handling such large datasets of unstructured data would have been impossible without the advancements in AI in recent years.”

The funding will be directed towards further development of Torg’s platform, expanding its supplier database and building more intuitive tools for buyers.

The round was led by Connect Ventures and joined by existing investor FoodLabs and new investors including Sondo, Ventures Together, Sameer Singh and Jonas Meynert, co-founder of Lanch.

Co-founder and CEO Hans Furuseth commented: .“Buyers have few good ways of finding new manufacturers. 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.”

“The drivers are clear - consumers are demanding transparency, certifications, and lower prices for the food they purchase and grocers and wholesalers are looking to own more of their supply chain in response. Torg enables this by creating the first digital sourcing platform for private label food and beverage, bringing sourcing decades ahead from where it is now.” said Sitar Teli, Partner at Connect Ventures.