Pieter Pot – a rapidly growing, fully circular e-grocer raises €9m to scale up its zero-waste service
The round was led by ETF Partners alongside existing investors SHIFT Invest, Future Food Fund and IQCapital (InnovationQuarter). Pieter Pot has been blitz-scaling since inception growing more than 10x year on year. The funding will be used to support Pieter Pot’s expansion into new geographies as well as other initiatives.
Rotterdam, NL, 7 December 2021: ETF Partners has led a €9 million investment round in zero waste e-groceries leader Pieter Pot. Existing investors SHIFT Invest, The Future Food Fund and IQCapital (InnovationQuarter) invested in the growth of the company. In addition to accelerating its international expansion, the Rotterdam-based company will continue to invest in its unique technology and infrastructure enabling a fully circular e-grocery experience.
Plastic usage continues to surge, and with it increasing emissions from its production and pollution through its waste. To date, much of the focus has been on recycling plastic to reduce its impact, yet with 60% of plastic ending up in either landfill or the natural environment, it is clear that recycling is not working.
At the same time, e-commerce continues to radically alter the grocery sector, an area traditionally reliant on significant volumes of single-use packaging. Pieter Pot is bringing zero waste shopping online, with maximum sustainability at maximum convenience. With Pieter Pot, groceries are delivered next day in fully reusable jars. With its innovative process, the company collects empties and manages the cleaning and refilling of its packaging. In doing so, Pieter Pot allows consumers to reduce their plastic consumption without having to change the way they buy.
Since launching in 2019, more than 700,000 Pieter Pot jars have been introduced into circulation, helping to reduce the need for more than 1.35 million single-use plastic packages to date. Within 2022, the company is targeting to eliminate one million packages per month.
Jouri Schoemaker, Founder and CEO at Pieter Pot, said “Plastic packaging is a by-product. Consumers are interested in what’s in the box, not the box itself. By moving packaging to reusables, we’re able to radically alter consumption patterns without demanding people to dramatically change their behaviour. We’ve now proven this could be done at scale and, with the new investment, we are doubling down on growth and our customers’ convenience. ETF Partners’ experience and track record speak for itself, and we are delighted to have them on board.”
Tomer Strikovsky of ETF Partners who will join Pieter Pot’s Board of Directors, said: “It’s clear that if we are to create a sustainable lifestyle, we need to tackle deeply entrenched problems in new ways. Pieter Pot is at the epicentre of multiple trends, including sustainability and technology, and reimagining a sector central to everyday life, specifically groceries. It is exactly the sort of business we are looking to invest in: a unique service offering in a burgeoning, continually growing sector, led by a team hyper-focused on having an impact through their sustainable, scalable company.”
ETF Partners led the funding round, with participation from existing investors SHIFT Invest, Future Food Fund and IQCapital (InnovationQuarter) alongside new joiners Ed Boyd, Chief Commercial Officer at HelloFresh, and Angel investor and chairman of The Modern Milkman Simon Murphy.
