Shelf Engine operates a technology platform that forecasts demand and automates orders for deli, bakery, produce, meat and seafood departments, managing vendor payments and charging retailers only for items sold. The company marks up products from vendors to retailers as its revenue model and says users can cut food waste by as much as 32%. Shelf Engine reports it has helped prevent more than 1 million pounds of food from reaching landfills and is used in at least 3,500 U.S. stores, including Kroger, Target and Whole Foods, as well as Compass Group. The business has about 200 employees, recently opened a second office in Denver, and is described as a five-year-old Seattle startup. Leadership includes co-founders and CEO Stefan Kalb and CTO Bede Jordan, with Deborah Alexander as COO/head of finance and Kane McCord as chief revenue officer and president. Financially, the company has raised $56 million to date and said it is "in a great position cash-wise." Shelf Engine provides an intelligent forecasting and order automation system that uses advanced statistical models, machine learning and neural networks to generate accurate orders for grocers. The product is designed to increase sales and margins while reducing food waste. It is currently live in more than 2,000 grocery stores nationwide and manages orders for leading grocers at thousands of locations. Launched in 2015 and based in Seattle, the company has more than 145 employees. Shelf Engine raised a $41M Series B bringing total funding to $58M and intends to use the funds to further invest in its team of engineers, data scientists and supply chain automation experts. The company is led by co-founder and CEO Stefan Kalb. Shelf Engine is a Seattle-based startup that optimizes supermarket perishable ordering through demand forecasting and a marketplace model. Co-founders Stefan Kalb and Bede Jordan built models that predict demand for highly perishable items, enabling grocers to lower waste and offer a broader variety of products. The company guarantees sales to stores and covers the cost of any unsold items, monetizing the arbitrage between what it pays vendors and what it charges grocers. Shelf Engine initially went to market with a product but found more traction by becoming a marketplace and perfecting its forecasting models. It is live at around 400 stores in the Northwest and plans to expand insights into secondary sources such as imperfect-produce resellers and other outlet channels. The company recently secured $12 million in new financing to scale engineering, sales, and customer acquisition efforts. Shelf Engine began by providing software to help grocers create more accurate orders for perishables and has evolved to take over the ordering process for stores. The company uses artificial intelligence to predict what stores will need and guarantees sales by taking back items that don’t sell. Shelf Engine initially embeds itself by handling a single category (for example, bread or produce) and then expands into additional departments to eliminate waste. It makes money by marking up items it orders, betting that grocers will save more on reduced waste than the extra cost. The startup serves more than 250 organizations, including WeWork, Bartell Drugs, PCC Natural Markets and the Swedish Hospital network, and recently completed Y Combinator. Shelf Engine plans to use new funding to grow its store network, handle ordering for more departments at existing customers, and beef up its sales and product teams. Shelf Engine offers an order-prediction engine that analyzes historical order and sales data to recommend how much retailers should order to minimize waste and boost margins. Its platform becomes more accurate with usage and submits orders to suppliers on behalf of retailers. Shelf Engine takes on supplier risk by buying back unsold inventory and only charging retailers for units they sold while still paying suppliers for the full order. The company says customers can increase gross margins by about 25% and reduce waste from an industry average of ~30% to roughly 16–18% for short‑lived items (and as low as 3–4% for items with up to 45 days shelf life). Shelf Engine is used at more than 180 retail points by clients including WeWork, Bartell Drugs, Natural Grocers and StockBox. The startup launched in 2016 and is participating in Y Combinator; it has raised $800,000 in seed funding from Initialized Capital. Management is hiring more engineers and salespeople to expand distribution through the food retail industry.

Total raised

$60M

Funding rounds

5

Latest round

Series B

Latest activity

Sep 2021