OneThird, an AI-powered food tech company created with the goal of reducing the global annual loss of one-third of all food produced due to spoilage, has completed a late-seed funding round raising $3M (2.75M euros). This financing brings its total amount of funds raised to $6.1M (5.75M euros), featuring Dutch-based impact investor Pymwymic (an acronym for "Put Your Money Where Your Meaning Is Community") as lead investor, with Halma Ventures, SHIFT Invest, and Oost NL also participating in the round. OneThird will use the new money to extend its technology and operations into North American and European markets to support fresh produce supply chains further and tackle the estimated $1 trillion wasted each year on food gone bad.
Launched in 2019, OneThird has developed its technology and chosen early customers from the fresh produce supply chain. Its AI-powered, near-infrared scanning technology provides growers, food distributors, retailers, and consumers the ability to predict shelf life and reduce waste in tomatoes, strawberries, blueberries, and avocados - with plans to expand their coverage to ten types of produce, including grapes, bananas, mangoes and raspberries by the end of 2023.
The United Nations has identified food waste as a significant global issue. Up to one-third of all food purchased yearly, an estimated $1 trillion, goes to waste, with fresh produce accounting for 40% of the total. With varying shelf lives and transportation often spanning long distances, the potential for spoilage is high — yet OneThird's technology offers a solution, giving supply chain actors in the produce industry real-time insights to help them make informed decisions that cut back on waste by 25%. This technology allows produce nearing its expiration date to be redirected into things like smoothies, dry, frozen products, or soups rather than going straight to landfill.
“Global food waste has an enormous environmental impact; reducing global food waste can help to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and embolden global food security. One-third of global food produced annually is lost or wasted, which is an astronomical volume given the number of people worldwide who go to bed hungry. Global food waste is both inefficient and a major social justice issue — one that is compounded across multiple touchpoints in the supply chain — from agricultural production all the way to the landfill,” said Marco Snikkers, CEO and founder of OneThird. “The latest seed funding we’ve received will allow us to accelerate the implementation of OneThird’s technology beyond our initial customer base, expand internationally and increase the impact we can create for our customers to help them generate higher ROI, and also meet their sustainability and ESG goals.”
“Increasing food security is key to supporting a growing global population,” said Sophie Pickering, Investment Manager at Pymwymic. “We’re excited by the possibilities OneThird’s technology presents in tackling the alarming quantities of global food loss across the supply chain.”