Noahs, a Copenhagen-based food-tech company that transforms the service stations, convenience stores (c-stores), supermarkets, and travel hubs into modern food destinations, has raised €1.9 million in new funding at a €6.5 million pre-money valuation.
Founded in 2020, Noahs has redefined how food integrates into retail — building a platform that enables global retailers to enter the digital food economy with zero capex and minimal labour.
I spoke to Daniel Baven, CEO and co-founder of Noahs, and Helle Uth, co-founder and Partner at PSV Tech, who led the investment, to learn more.
3 million retail locations, yet most analog
While the retail sector counts more than 3 million locations worldwide, much of it remains analog. Meanwhile, the daily consumer's behaviour is notably changing towards convenience and tech-enablement: almost 50 per cent of households’ food consumption is food away from home.
Add to the fact that Millennials and GenZers favour zero-human interaction when it comes to C-stores check-out experience.
“Until recently, the tech wasn’t good enough.”
According to Uth, service stations and supermarkets are being pushed into new roles:
“Fuel matters less due to electrification, and fresh food sales are declining. Both service stations and supermarkets can meet this shift by offering healthy, ready-to-eat meals—but doing so at scale is hard without strong digital tools. "
Baven contends that, against this, until recently, the tech wasn’t good enough:
“Traditional integrations were complex, slow, and expensive. What we’ve built is a unified system that lets retailers digitise and layer in food brands without a massive investment. Interestingly, some retailers stayed analog simply because digitisation wasn’t strategically important—until now.
Today, they feel the urgency.”
Uth agrees, asserting that,”AI and automation are finally mature enough to work reliably in stores, and you have the perfect moment for change. The technology simply wasn’t mature enough before; now it is, and the industry can’t afford to stay analogue.”
From chef in Thailand to a foodtech entrepreneur
Baven originally comes from the culinary world; he’s a trained chef and spent his first ten years in kitchens. At around age 24, he moved to Thailand to work in hotels and opened a sandwich shop on the side.
Bavan shared, “The demand was huge, and within a year and a half we grew it into more than 20 locations."
During that journey, the team developed strong tech capabilities and built a modern franchise system unlike anything else at the time. But when COVID hit, Thailand closed its borders for nearly two years, and the business essentially collapsed.
“That’s when we started looking ahead and asking: ‘What will the future of food production look like?’ We saw it becoming more digital, higher volume, and integrated into retail spaces.”
Noahs was born from that thinking.
Over the past five years, the team has built the “implementation recipe” for how food gets embedded into retail at scale. In response, the team has developed a comprehensive platform consisting of three layers:
The three-layer system powering retail food digitisation
The technology stack
According to Bavan, most retailers are extremely analog, running on legacy IT systems that make digitisation slow and bureaucratic. Noahs has built a plug-and-play omnichannel system—kiosks, app ordering, QR, aggregators—all feeding into one decentralised cloud-based POS. With just Wi-Fi, a retailer can digitise their entire shop.
“We also unify all digital revenue through one reconciliation and BI system. That means a single store can run its own products, plus additional digital storefronts, plus multiple food brands simultaneously,” explained Bavan.
Streamable food brands
“We provide simple, high-quality food brands—bowls, tacos, sandwiches, chicken concepts—that retailers can produce using the equipment they already have," detailed Bavan.
These aren’t typical convenience items; they compete with restaurants.
Suddenly a convenience store can offer restaurant-quality meals during hours when footfall usually drops. Further, “there’s almost no CapEx involved, and no extra labour. A retailer can start offering QSR-level dishes immediately.”
Long-term kitchen transformation as cooking at home becomes rarer
Bavan predicts that over the next decade, retailers will move increasingly into hospitality because food has higher margins and larger basket sizes.
“Our 10-year thesis is that cooking at home will become rarer because it will be more expensive than ordering prepared food. Retailers have the locations, scale, and pricing power to outcompete many traditional restaurants. We’re helping them build that future step by step.”
According to Bavan the concept has roots in the ghost kitchen model, “but we rebuilt it to be much more applicable to retail. This is designed for walk-ins, service stations, supermarkets—physical spaces with existing footfall.”
“Noahs is completely brand-agnostic. We enable famous brands, local restaurant IP, and our own streamable brands to run inside the same retail location. It's a hospitality layer that sits on top of retail infrastructure.”
Investor confidence in a tough foodtech market
Noahs’ plug-and-play solution has gained considerable traction, positioning it to become one of the frontrunners in the food-tech industry.
The company has experienced an exponential 200 per cent revenue over the last three years. It successfully onboards major international conglomerate clients and partners, including. MAXOL, Q8, DSC, and MENY,
Further, it has over 88 + service-station locations live in DK and a broader EU rollout underway; It's an approach that has gained traction with investors.
“The winners will simplify—not complicate—retail operations.”
PSV Tech was launched in 2020 as part of the PSV Venture House to back Nordic founders even before product/market fit. The team supports founders in taking their software startups from early validation to scalable growth.
With more than €100m under management, numerous tech investments and six exits from their first fund—including Helloflow and Heyhack—the PSV Tech team has proven its strength in the earliest growth stages and truly knows the craft
According to Ulm, food-tech funding has gone through a reset, but companies that combine operational knowledge with strong technology are still attracting high-quality investors.
“The trend is shifting away from capital-heavy models toward software-driven infrastructure — exactly where NOAHS sits.
Its platform is built to be light, cloud-based, and API-driven. There’s no heavy hardware rollout and almost no implementation downtime. Stores can be live in days, not months — which makes fast scaling possible without big upfront investments.
NOAHS turns food operations into something scalable and profitable.“
She contends that retail is changing fast, and the winners will be the companies that make everyday operations simpler, not more complicated.
“NOAHS is building exactly that kind of solution, and we’re proud to support a team that understands both the food world and the technology powering it.”
The investment round was also joined by angel investors, Kraen Nielsen, Executive Advisor & Tech Investor, Former Group CEO & CTO of Coop Denmark, Denmark's largest consumer cooperative, and Bob Stein, President RBS & Associates.
Existing shareholders, including early Noahs investor Torben Frigaard Rasmussen, Former e-conomic CEO and active angel investor, also participated in the round.
According to Uth, “Our role is to help NOAHS scale in a structured way."
"We’ve backed many companies through this stage, so we know what it takes operationally and how to prepare for the next round of investors. We bring the experience and network that let companies grow fast without losing focus.”
Rapid market expansion from Europe to the world
Noahs is currently expanding into Ireland, Belgium, and Luxembourg, and expects to have around 600 locations across Northern Europe by 2026. The startup is running pilot projects in many countries, so the funding is going toward building the international rollout team and strengthening its product.
“We’re also consolidating our IP into a more centralised, high-value stack,” shared Bavan.
“The goal is strong traction ahead of a Series A round in Q3 2026. In 2026 we’re also planning pilot locations and local HQs in both the UAE and the US.
The model is very adaptable — retailers can localise brands, ingredients, or concepts easily."
He believes that food is going to become one of the next big verticals emerging from the AI wave:
“Noahs sits at the intersection of culinary IP, hardware, and operational tech. We think the real value of this vertical will become much more visible over the next couple of years.”
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