Participated · Series A · Dec 2021

Spoiler Alert provides a B2B liquidation platform that enables food and beverage brands to digitize and manage excess, short-dated, and obsolete inventory across private networks of discount retailers and nonprofit channels. The software focuses on maximizing value recovery, strengthening customer relationships, and improving supply chain effectiveness for perishable consumer packaged goods. Its customers include major global CPG firms such as Nestlé, Kraft Heinz, Campbell Soup Company, and Danone North America. Over the past 12 months the company has seen adoption-driven growth, reporting over 400% growth in gross transaction value and zero customer churn. Spoiler Alert also enables opportunistic purchasing for discount retailers and emerging DTC grocers like Ollie's Bargain Barn and Misfits Market. The company plans to use new funding to expand its team, invest in platform enhancements to move more inventory through diversified channels, and support go-to-market efforts for product category diversification. Spoiler Alert offers a cloud-based software and services platform that enables item-level tracking, reporting of food recovery and waste diversion, and facilitation of donations, discounted sales, and organics recycling. The company integrates with enterprise resource planning and warehouse management systems to give organizations visibility into inventory indicators and reduce waste before products become landfill-bound. Customers include major food distributor Sysco and meal-kit company HelloFresh, with a reported trial that cut HelloFresh's supply-chain food waste by 65%. Spoiler Alert was born out of MIT in 2015 and is based in Boston. The team has launched an accelerator program, FoodTrack, focused on technologies that combat food waste. Management says newly raised proceeds will be used to build out product and engineering teams, expand customer success and business development, and strengthen the management team ahead of a planned Series A in 2019. Founded in 2015 and based in Boston, Spoiler Alert provides cloud-based enterprise software that connects food producers, logistics companies, food banks and pantries to reduce food waste. The platform helps producers track inventory they would otherwise discard, attain tax credits for donations, and sell surplus or "ugly" produce and near-spoilage goods to other businesses at discounted rates. Spoiler Alert positions itself as a secondary wholesale marketplace for food, enabling farms to sell imperfect produce to juice or soup makers and similar buyers. The company has worked with large food producers and farms, including a recent partnership with Sysco Corporation (Sysco reports roughly $50 billion in annual revenue). Spoiler Alert does not operate its own shipping but partners with for-profit and nonprofit organizations that provide temperature-controlled transport. The company plans to use funding to expand its services to food producers and nonprofits across every major U.S. metro area and to broaden support for diverting organic waste to uses like livestock feed or clean energy.

Participated · Seed · Oct 2021

Gradient Works offers a platform that automates rules of engagement to help chief revenue officers route leads, assign opportunities, and allocate customer accounts across the customer lifecycle. Its first product, Gradient Works Assignment, was made publicly available to automate those routing and assignment workflows. The company serves customers including Upwork, WordPress VIP, Parse.ly, Pathwire, GoCardless and Luma Health. Gradient Works was started by Hayes Davis and Jenn Deering Davis (founders of Union Metrics) and is based in Austin, TX. The company recently raised seed funding and intends to use the proceeds to continue investing in the team, including hiring Lily Youn to lead new business growth. A member of the lead investor's team, John (JR) Reale of Integr8d Capital, joined the board as part of the financing.

Participated · Series B · Aug 2019

Hazel Technologies is a USDA-funded agricultural technology company that develops solutions to extend the quality shelf life of fresh produce. Its flagship product is a packaging insert sachet that delivers a controlled release of shelf-life enhancing vapor, placed in boxes of bulk produce at harvest to slow aging and prevent decay. The company works with more than 160 companies across 12 countries and counts Mission Avocado, Zespri, and Oppy among its customers. Founded in 2015 and led by CEO Aidan Mouat, Hazel is based in Chicago, IL. Hazel raised $70M in a Series C, bringing cumulative capital raised to over $87M. The company intends to use the funds to build global operations in major agricultural production areas and expand into Southeast Asia, Africa, the EU, and beyond. Hazel Technologies is a USDA-supported agricultural technology company founded in 2015 and based in Chicago, IL. It develops sachet-based products that release active, shelf-life-enhancing vapor from packaging inserts placed in boxes at harvest to slow aging and prevent fungus or decay. The company has completed over 100 pilot trials since 2017 across crops including melons, okra, apricots, avocados and cherries. Hazel works with over 100 of the largest fresh produce packers, shippers and retailers in the US and Latin America. The company plans to use new funding to continue growth of its main product line, launch new technologies and add talent. Its recent fundraise increased its cumulative financing to date, supporting commercial expansion of its core technology. Hazel Technologies develops drop-in packaging inserts that release an anti-fungal, shelf-life-extending vapor for produce. Its inserts can extend shelf life by as much as three times by preventing fungus and decay. The company is USDA-supported and is led by CEO and co-founder Aidan Mouat. Hazel closed a $3.26M Series A and intends to use the funds to increase production capacity. In 2017 and 2018 the company announced partnerships with major domestic and international produce growers, including Dresick Farms International (DFI) and Agritrade Farms International. The product targets the global food-waste problem by increasing produce shelf life via a simple packaging solution. Hazel Technologies builds shelf-life enhancement technologies aimed at extending the freshness of fresh produce to reduce food waste. The company develops treatments and packaging adjuncts that growers and shippers can apply to prolong produce shelf life. Hazel has received multiple USDA awards, including a recent $600k Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant and an earlier $100k development grant in 2016. With the new funding the company plans to explore export markets and further enhance its technology for global food-waste reduction. The USDA awarded the SBIR grant based on endorsements from growers who tested Hazel’s technologies, providing field validation. Aidan Mouat is the company’s CEO and co-founder. Chicago-based Hazel Technologies produces biodegradable, non-toxic packaging inserts—pads and sugar‑packet–sized sachets—that actively emit ingredients to slow spoilage of fruits and vegetables. Its FruitBrite packets use 1-methylcyclopropene (1‑MCP) to block ethylene receptors and delay ripening; the BerryBrite product line targets fungal threats. The company was started by Northwestern University alumni and is led by CEO Aidan Mouat. Hazel says the inserts work with existing grower and shipper infrastructure and can extend shelf life from days to weeks, enabling access to more distant markets. Hazel previously received SBIR grant funding from the USDA. The startup raised funding to ramp up manufacturing and to develop new products while expanding its commercial partnerships.

Participated · Seed · Dec 2017

FarmWise develops and deploys autonomous weeding robotics, using AI to scan and tend vegetable crops. The company has operated commercially in California and Arizona and its robots have logged 15,000 commercial hours and captured about 450 million crop scans. FarmWise’s core product is designed to provide cost-effective, sustainable solutions to labor shortages on farms. The new funding will accelerate R&D and the rollout of its existing product to more farmers. CEO Sebastien Boyer emphasized expanding the technology to work with many more farmers amid rising agricultural costs. Fall Line Capital co-founder Clay Mitchell is joining FarmWise’s board as part of the round. FarmWise develops autonomous, AI-enabled farming robots that perform a variety of field tasks beginning with precision weeding and personalized care for individual plants. Its machines use machine learning models, computer vision and high-precision mechanical tools to remove weeds while eliminating chemical inputs. FarmWise reports its robots have removed weeds from more than 10 million plants and says each robot can weed crops sufficient to feed a medium-sized city of roughly 400,000 inhabitants. The company is enhancing the scale and depth of its proprietary plant-detection and actuation technology so robots can monitor plant health and deliver targeted interventions, effectively acting as specialized doctors for crops. FarmWise employs a 25-person team of farming and AI experts drawn from MIT, Stanford and Columbia and recently raised capital to expand engineering, operations and R&D. FarmWise develops adaptive autonomous farming equipment that leverages computer vision, deep learning and plant recognition to perform effective weeding. Its machines aim to replace herbicides, increase yields and adapt to different crops. The company says its machine learning algorithms will enable the systems to adjust to additional farming tasks over time. FarmWise was founded in 2016 by Sebastien Boyer and is based in San Francisco, CA. The company raised $5.7M in seed funding to pilot its first autonomous machines on some of the largest vegetable farms in the US and to expand its engineering team. As part of the financing, inventor Bruce Leak joined FarmWise's board of directors.

Participated · Series C · Aug 2016

Sample6 develops point-of-need synthetic biology diagnostics and a cloud-based food safety management and control system for food processors across meat, seafood, dairy, produce, and dry goods. Its core product enables in-shift testing to detect and control pathogens at various points of need, and the software can integrate data from safety and laboratory management systems, including microbial and allergen testing. The company serves global customers such as Unilever, Smithfield, and Saputo. Led by newly appointed CEO Dr. Michael Koeris, Sample6 intends to use the funding to commercialize its food pathogen detection system for food safety. The company is based in Cambridge, MA. Total investment to date and operating metrics are reported in the financing coverage. Sample6 applies biotechnology to advance food safety, developing diagnostic assays and a software platform for the food industry. Its first products are Sample6 DETECT/L, a diagnostic assay designed to identify Listeria contamination, and Sample6 CONTROL, a software platform used to plan, execute, remediate and analyze food safety programs. The company intends to use the Series B proceeds to commercialize those products, which are expected to be available in the first half of 2014. Sample6 raised $11m in Series B financing to fund commercialization. The company is led by CEO Tim Curran. In conjunction with the funding, Canaan Partners added governance and scientific support through board and advisory appointments.