US Firm Buys Majority Of Finnish Foodtech Startup Digital Foodie

    U.S. firm Enterworks Holding Co, fully owned by private equity fund Black Dragon Capital, has bought the majority of foodtech startup Digital Foodie and has made ‘a significant’ investment in the Finnish firm to boost its global ambitions through tight partnership.

    “Our scalable cloud platform allows grocers of all sizes to quickly deploy an advanced on-demand commerce solution. Foodie built its foundation in the highly competitive European market with a customer base that includes the largest Finnish grocer, S-Group,” Kalle Koutajoki, co-founder and CEO of Digital Foodie, said in a statement.

    Koutajoki told ArcticStartup the U.S. firm would buy a majority, but not the full company, with founders continuing in the firm.

    The North American digital grocery industry, while far behind Europe in penetration, is growing at a 25 percent annual rate. While this rapid growth has attracted investment in digitally enabled grocery delivery companies, these companies pick and deliver food under their own brand name, weakening grocers’ brands and customer loyalty. Digital Foodie offers white-label platform to overcome this challenge.

    “North American grocers can leapfrog competitors by moving to ‘food on demand’ with the best-in-class personalized digital platform that has performed successfully at advanced grocery and hypermarket chains in Europe,” said Rick Chavie, CEO of EnterWorks.