Hungry Harvest, the Baltimore produce delivery company that grew out of the University of Maryland, has closed its Series A round of funding with $13.7 million in venture capital to show for it.
Hungry Harvest had already raised about $7.25 million toward the Series A earlier this year. The oversubscribed round was led by Creadev, a firm based in Paris that invests in food, health care and sustainability ventures. Existing and new investors also participated, including New York's Danone Manifesto Ventures, Switzerland-based Quadia and Ohio's Maywic Select Investments. The infusion brings the produce rescue and delivery business' total backing to $15 million to date.
Evan Lutz, CEO of Hungry Harvest, said his company plans to use the new funding to scale up and expand the business, expand its efforts to provide relief to food-insecure communities and invest in making its business model more sustainable.
The additional funding comes amid a boom in demand for Hungry Harvest's service, which delivers boxes of produce items that are considered less desirable, and may be thrown out, due to cosmetic or surplus concerns. Unlike many firms that saw a sudden halt in their business earlier this year, Hungry Harvest experienced a surge.
Lutz recently told the BBJ that the company, which has been steadily growing its regional customer base for six years, saw customer demand nearly triple as many families pivoted away from physically going to grocery stores due to Covid-19. The company worked quickly in recent months to scale up its operations, purchase "tens of thousands of dollars worth" of additional equipment and bring on more staff to help fulfill orders, he said. Now, the company is looking for additional local distribution space so it can add even more capacity.
Covid-19 rapidly accelerated Hungry Harvest's growth projections, Lutz has said. The company had expected to hit its current sales volumes by early 2021, and had also planned to grow into additional space and scale up its staff throughout the year. Instead of executing growth plans over a span of many months, Hungry Harvest had only weeks.
Hungry Harvest "rescues" fruits, vegetables and other grocery items that would otherwise be thrown out and delivers them directly to subscribers’ homes. Since its founding in 2014, the company says it has reduced over 22 million pounds of food waste and donated or subsidized more than 1.5 million pounds of produce to partner organizations and through its food access programs.
The company had about 60 employees prior to the pandemic, and now employs nearly 100. Lutz said he expects Hungry Harvest will hire up to 80 more people in the coming months.
Hungry Harvest is also plotting additional geographic expansions this year and in 2021. The company already has a presence in Maryland, Washington, D.C., Virginia, Greater Philadelphia, Southern New Jersey, Northern Delaware, South Florida, parts of North Carolina and the Detroit metro area. Lutz said the company will continue growing, to serve more cities on the East Coast.
Lutz said with this latest round, the company is adding investors who bring "valued expertise in sustainability, the food industry and growth of a consumer brand" that will help Hungry Harvest execute on its growth plans. Following the deal, Jean-Francois Hurel, chief investment officer at Danone Manifesto Ventures, will join Hungry Harvest’s board of directors. Marion Schuppe, impact investment manager of Quadia, and Frederic Mayerson, chairman of Maywic Select Investments, will also become board observers.
“We see this as a huge opportunity to advance our mission with some of the brightest minds in the business and we can’t wait to put our ideas into action,” Lutz said in a statement.
An earlier version of this story misstated the total amount of funding Hungry Harvest has raised to date. The total is $15 million.
