Freshflow raises €6.5M

Freshflow raises €6.5M to scale and eliminate food waste throughout European supermarket supply chains

The raise comes after rapid revenue growth and successful partnerships with major French and German retailers

• Food waste is a significant climate issue: European retailers scrap 4m tonnes of food every year - ~11 kg per person - and hitting retailer margins by reducing them by up to 50%
• Freshflow’s AI-powered platform is uniquely tailored to fresh produce departments, allowing teams to swap unreliable intuition-based ordering for just-in-time, lean and efficient fresh food supply chains, reducing waste by 20%+ and delivering  ~2-5% revenue increases.
• The company has raised a €6.5m Seed round led by World Fund, Europe’s leading climate VC,  Capnamic and Venture Stars to enter new produce categories, double its team, and expand into grocery distribution centers. Caesar Ventures also strongly participated in the round.
• The round comes after a period of organic hypergrowth that saw ARR rise to 7-digits following inbound demand and partnerships with retailers.

Berlin / Paris, May (TBC), 2025:  Freshflow - the AI-powered platform that optimises the fresh food supply chain with AI, starting with grocery retailers - has raised €6.5m in fresh funding to scale and expand into new categories on the back of rapid commercial and technical success.

The round was co-led by World Fund, Europe’s leading climate VC, and early-stage generalist VC, Capnamic and Venture Stars. Caesar Ventures also participated in the round. It comes after Freshflow scaled ARR to 7-digit figures and partnered with franchisees of retail giants including Carrefour, Edeka and Intermarché, and saw its platform deployed across the L. Stroetmann chain. 

The Berlin and Paris-based startup, which has raised €8.7m to date, was founded in 2021 after company founder and CEO, Machine Learning scientist Avik Mukhija, spent months on the shop floor during a placement for his Masters degree. Freshflow is the first European AI/ML waste-prevention solution to specifically target niche challenges around ultra-fresh products, including quality variations, short shelf lives, loose items, many different local suppliers, cashier errors, and more. Its AI-powered platform automates daily ordering decisions for fresh produce, leading to proven average waste reductions of around 20% and revenue increases of ~2-5%. 

Why Freshflow offers the ideal solution for retailers 

The grocery retail sector is responsible for ~5% of total annual food waste, binning over 4.5m tonnes - largely due to stock mismanagement. If retailers order too little they face the prospect of losing sales, but order too much and they run the risk of waste and killing profit margins. Yet today, many retailers still rely on store team members’ intuition to handle fresh produce orders, leading to over-ordering and waste. Other fresh produce teams are left to use non-tailored AI solutions/software that were not built to address their specific needs. 

Honed over 3+ years with the ideal combination of AI expert and fresh produce manager input, Freshflow offers the solution to this problem. The platform uses state-of-the-art probabilistic AI to overcome key challenges in fresh grocery supply chains. Unlike generalist retail forecasting tools, Freshflow adapts to on-the-ground realities - accounting for store layout, temperature, seasonal trends and spoilage risk. Over the past year, it has found impressive traction with customers.

Bastien Gelin is CEO of Groupe Yabe, which is among the largest Carrefour franchisers in France and has deployed Freshflow in all its stores: “We have been working with Freshflow's AI for 9 months. Thanks to the application and Freshflow’s team, we have radically improved our process in the fresh produce departments. We have seen strong results: more inventory turns, less waste and more freshness.”

Freshflow now plans to scale further and tap an enormous market. The European fresh produce industry is worth more than <$350bn, and the TAM for Freshflow’s product is approx. €4bn in Europe alone. Mukhija plans to use his fresh capital to expand into adjacent ‘fresh’ categories including dairy, meat, and bakery and launch new capabilities its engineers have successfully trialled for distribution center (DC) ordering. Freshflow also plans to hire ~15 new team members across its Berlin and Paris bases in 2025, grow its 24-person team to 50 by 2026 and continue geographic expansion across Europe.

Avik Mukhija, Freshflow founder and CEO, said: “We're seeing incredible demand from retailers, because we offer the first AI in Europe specifically built for the needs of their fresh departments. Having now proven our system across a large number of stores with 93% order acceptance and glowing reviews from fresh produce managers, demand from retailers is accelerating further. With the support of our investment partners, we can now build on this traction and serve retailers across Europe, moving one step closer to our vision to achieve a just-in-time, lean and climate-friendly fresh food supply chain.”

Nadine Geiser, Principal at World Fund, said: “Until now, no one has offered European retailers a cost-effective and easy-to-implement solution to avoid fresh food waste. Freshflow is that solution. Avik has the vision, expertise and contacts to grow this into a global company - as evidenced by Freshflow’s impressive traction over the last year. We are very excited to be doubling down on our investment into Freshflow and its talented team.” 

Markus Merz, Investment Manager at Capnamic, said: “The Freshflow team's customer obsession knows no bounds and left a lasting impression on us as an investor. While their strong traction came as no surprise, it nonetheless exceeded our expectations and prompted us to further deepen our commitment to this partnership. The team is primed to scale, and we’re excited to support them on their journey.”

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About Freshflow: 

Freshflow tackles the difficulties of forecasting and replenishment for fresh products in grocery retailers by using artificial intelligence. The platform’s state-of-the-art engine plugs into a retailer’s existing IT system, allowing a lightning fast on-boarding process that will see new customers save money,stock and boost revenue within a month. Customers including some of the largest retailers in Germany, France and Switzerland have seen on average food waste down by 20% and revenues increase by 2-5% at their stores. Following this success, Freshflow hopes to scale up their offering and ultimately expand across the whole food supply chain, reducing global food waste by 50%.

‍About Capnamic
Capnamic is an independent early-stage venture-capital firm that backs technology startups from Europe at the very first steps from pre-seed through Series A and supports them until exit. Founded in 2013, the firm is led by General Partners Jörg Binnebrücker, Christian Siegele, Christian Knott and Olaf Jacobi.