In this podcast series, Alex Shandrovsky interviews investors about benchmarks for funding alt proteins in 2024 and uncovers the investment playbooks of successful climate tech CEOs and leading VCs.
Podcast host Alex Shandrovksy is a strategic advisor to numerous global food tech accelerators and companies, including alternative proteins and cellular agriculture leaders. His focus is on investor relations and post-raise scale for agrifood tech companies.
Episode 11: Olaf van der Veen of Orbisk
In this episode, Alex talked to Olaf, co-founder and CEO of Orbisk, who helps professional kitchens in the food service sector and related industries reduce food waste, improving both sustainability and profitability. Olaf’s talk provides valuable insights into navigating venture capital, building trust with investors, creating strong customer relationships, and using innovative business models to fund hardware in the SaaS space. It highlights how clarity, purpose-driven action, and strong stakeholder relationships contribute to successful fundraising.
Key Facts Orbisk:
- Goal: To make the world food system more sustainable.
- Recently raised €8M led by Regeneration VC and Peakbridge
Alex’s Top Findings:
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- Having strong product traction and growth helps in securing investors, even when there are setbacks in fundraising. “ We were in a fortunate position, and we’re on a pretty good growth trajectory. So that makes a whole lot of conversations a lot easier. Even irrespective of this series A, we were in a position where we would have the company go well without the investment. We are at a point that’s not far from cash flow neutrality and positivity. It’s just that our growth ambitions wouldn’t be met. So that makes the conversation a whole lot easier.” Julien shared.
- The importance of choosing the right lead investor who actively participates in fundraising and provides a clear structure. “ That is basically what I should have recognized earlier. As a lead, you expect to really take the lead in this round and provide clarity in the round, sort of boundaries, process, structure, and clarity.
- Being hyper-transparent is important. “As a company and as a founder, I always promised myself and everyone around me that hyper transparency is what I’m asking for in others.”
Link to Apple Podcast here.
Catch the full podcast series here.
