DX Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of food delivery service Delivery Hero, has contributed to a $43m series B round for UK-based food sharing platform operator Olio, TechCrunch reported today.
Investment firm VNV Global and hedge fund Lugard Road Capital co-led the round, which also included venture capital firms Accel, Octopus Ventures and Rubio Impact Ventures as well as private backers Jason Stockwood and Lord Waheed Alli.
Founded in 2015, Olio has built an online platform that lets users submit photos of their unwanted food and share those products with the local community. The company’s more than five million users have shared 25 million portions of food on the platform.
Olio plans to use the funding to speed up its international expansion across Latin America, Northern Europe and Asia. It will also build up its Food Waste Heroes Programme, in which volunteers save unsold surplus food from local businesses.
Duncan McIntyre, managing partner of DX Ventures said: “Having built a solid and fast-growing community of users, Olio is tackling the global food waste problem in a scalable and sustainable way. Olio has an incredibly well-loved product and with this partnership, we look forward to helping Olio grow and expand its global footprint.”
Olio raised $6m in an Octopus Ventures-led series A round in 2018. Accel, Quadia, Bran Investments, Alli’s Silvergate Investments 2 vehicle and individual investors Stockwood, Julien Codorniou and Quentin Griffiths also participated in the series A round.
Accel, Quadia, Mustard Seed, Griffiths and Wayne Churchill had backed a $2.2m round for the business in 2017.