Burda Principal Investments (BPI), the growth capital arm of media and tech company Hubert Burda Media, has invested in UK-based Oddbox, a platform that is leveraging technology to fight food waste. BPI has invested a total of £16m, comprising a combination of primary and secondary investment.
The new funds will be used to accelerate Oddbox’s contribution to fighting food waste by enhancing their customer experience, expanding their UK footprint and increasing sharing options for their employees.
Oddbox is a community-powered weekly rescue mission to save delicious, fresh fruit and veg which is deemed ‘too big’, ‘too ugly’, the ‘wrong’ colour, or ‘not needed’ from going to waste. It delivers its boxes directly from the growers to people’s doorsteps across London, the South and the Midlands. With food waste being a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, Oddbox is building a community that together can play its part in fighting food waste and tackling climate change. With nearly three million boxes delivered since it launched in 2016, Oddbox has already saved 18,834 tonnes of food waste, the equivalent of how much food 40,943 people would eat in a year, with a goal of saving 150,000 tonnes by 2025.
Oddbox was founded in 2016 by wife and husband team Emilie Vanpoperinghe and Deepak Ravindran. The company has registered an exponential six-fold year-on-year growth in revenue in 2020 and has a highly loyal and engaged community.
“We are very inspired by Emilie and Deepak, the Oddbox founders, with their clear and authentic purpose to tackle food waste and the impressive and scalable platform they have built to enable this. We are delighted to be joining the journey to accelerate this mission”.
Amelia Townsend, Principal, BurdaPrincipal Investments
“With our recent growth we’ve identified key areas for Oddbox to develop and further our mission to fight food waste. So while we continue to retain majority stakes, we wanted an investor to help make these developments happen, and importantly who also shares our vision that business is a force for good. We’ve found that in Burda, as they’re committed to long-term sustainability, a principle at the core of Oddbox.”
Emilie Vanpoperinghe & Deepak Ravindran, Co-Founders, Oddbox
