Verdify increases seed round to €2.1 million for accelerated rollout of personalised recipe platform
Venlo, The Netherlands, June 30, 2022
Verdify increases seed round to €2.1 million for accelerated rollout of personalised recipe platform
Verdify has raised €800,000 on top of the €1.3 million in funding the company obtained last December. This brings the seed round to € 2.1 million in total. The additional capital will be provided by Brave New Food Investments and existing shareholders Brightlands Venture Partners and Joles.
The funding will be used to accelerate the market introduction of Verdify’s platform for recipe personalisation. Both consumers and companies in the food sector will be enabled to use the software that can adapt online recipes to lifestyle- and nutrient requirements.
Tailormade recipes
More than 90 million consumers in the EU struggle with food challenges because of their health condition or the aspiration of a more sustainable diet. Verdify enables people to make the right food choices by providing matching and reliable meal inspiration. This can already be experienced on Verdify’s website Swapmeals.com that currently generates more than 40,000 monthly visits. There, the composition of any meal can be optimised by manually swapping ingredients. This can also be done fully automatically based on extensive personal nutrition profiles, in which case a nutrition score indicates the personal match with the adapted meal. The required ingredients can be ordered from affiliated food retailers. Soon, the technology will also be activated on other recipe platforms to reach vast numbers of consumers.
The technology
Over the past years Verdify has invested heavily in the development of technology for recipe personalisation. A joint effort of Verdify’s dietitians, software engineers and artificial intelligence specialists has been key to creating the platform. Now, the software can be applied to tailor virtually all recipes on the internet – fully in line with the applicable nutrition guidelines. Recipes can be converted into a plant-based or lactose-free variant, for example, or optimised for someone with heart disease, at the touch of a button.
Promoting healthy and sustainable food
Companies in the food sector can now use Verdify’s technology to let their brands appear automatically in matching recipes on frequently visited websites or ecommerce platforms. Online meal inspiration is widely used for food brand promotion but development of this type of content is resource intensive. Verdify offers a solution by matching food brands with generic ingredients in a recipe, or with their plant-based or low-salt swap alternative. This option is offered to companies with products in their portfolio that fit in a generally healthy lifestyle.
Vincent van Gorkom, Partner at Brave New Food Investments: The additional capital enables Verdify to accelerate the market introduction of the platform for recipe personalisation. This entails expansion of the commercial team and reaching an increasing number of consumers. We are excited to be on board and trust the competences of the Verdify team.
Fleur Pasman, Nutrition Director at Verdify: “We aim to make knowhow about healthy and sustainable nutrition easily applicable in daily life through smart use of technology. The extension of this funding round enables accelerated implementation of our concept to facilitate better food choices at a large scale.”
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About Brave New Food Investments
BNF Investments is directly linked to Brave New Food, a European platform for food innovation. Brave New Food connects a thriving community of innovative start-ups and scale-ups with 35+ valuable partners, ranging from food corporates to investors and knowledge partners. With the support of the platform, BNF Investments connects companies with broader markets, networks and expertise while providing financing at scale. www.bravenewfoodinvestments.com
About Brightlands Venture Partners
Brightlands Venture Partners (BVP) is the fund manager of Brightlands Agrifood Fund and is a so-called ecosystem investor. BVP invests in companies that benefit from and contribute to the Brightlands campuses in the south of the Netherlands. Funds under management are BVP fund IV, Brightlands Agrifood Fund, Chemelot Ventures and Limburg Ventures. https://brightlandsventurepartners.com/
About Joles B.V.
Joles is a private investment company that focuses on creative start-ups in the food chain. Joles is particularly interested in companies that develop socially responsible concepts in the trajectory from food production to consumption. Current investments include Koppert Cress BV (development and international sale of cress plants and food specialties), Trouw BV (processing company of gluten-free buckwheat products) and Agxeed BV (development of platform technology for autonomous agriculture).
About Verdify B.V.
Verdify is a Dutch foodtech company that develops innovative software for recipe personalisation. With the technology platform, the company unlocks the potential of personalised nutrition for consumers, healthcare and companies in the food sector. Verdify combines strong expertise in the life sciences, dietetics, A.I. and new business models. For more information, visit https://www.verdify.co.uk or https://www.swapmeals.com