Deals in the food tech space have been picking up lately, with Scandinavian food tech startups like Curb, which was founded by Delivery Hero’s former executive Carl Tengberg, and Danish food platform Superb, being the latest in a string of recent growth equity investments in this space.
Curb secured EUR20 million in funding at the beginning of June, while Superb raised EUR12 million in a Series A round backed by a group of investors including Swedish investment company Kinnevik.
Based on recent deal flow it certainly looks like the market for online restaurants is set for transformation in the next few years, as a new tech-driven approach to the food and restaurant industry is a theme that will be able to thoroughly disrupt the market. Read this week’s feature to find out more on what the future holds for food tech.
On Wednesday, Paris-based Finance for Tomorrow launched ‘Investors for a Just Transition’, an investor coalition focused on promoting a socially acceptable environmental transition to greener low-carbon economies. Founding members include Amundi, Aviva France, AXA & AXA Investment Managers, and Rothschild & Co Asset Management Europe.
Meanwhile, UK-based Ethos Invest launched a vehicle set to become the world’s largest shariah compliant tech-focused private equity fund. With a fundraise target of GBP1 billion, the aim is to invest in the growing ethical market in a Shariah value-based way that ‘furthers financial inclusion in the UK’.
In a podcast for PEWire this week Steven Unzicker, founder of ANZU Research, and SEI’s Ross Ellis and Michael Neumann, head of AI Quantitative Strategies and partner at Arabesque, discuss how the decentralised model – as characterised by Uber and Airbnb – could inform the future of fund management.
Could the Uber model, with its low cost, high flexibility and customer-centric traits, shine a light on how fund managers run their portfolios? Will firm culture become less important as firms build truly global decentralised teams? What challenges might that present?
Karin Wasteson
Editor, Private Equity Wire