Italian Fresh Food Delivery Service Cortilia Secures €8.5M Series B.

• The North Italy-based company plans to expand rapidly across the Italian market
• The business enables customers to order 2,000 items from local farmers, producers and artisans, straight to their door
• The Italian grocery market is worth €150Bn, but online services have a low adoption rate, providing Cortilia with the opportunity to become a key player in the food delivery market as it grows

Milan, Italy 17 September 2019– Cortilia, an innovative e-commerce business delivering fresh food products to homes across the North of Italy, has today announced it has raised €8.5million from the leading European foodtech investor Five Seasons Ventures, and Indaco Ventures, the largest VC in Italy.

Cortilia offers country-fresh products to consumers by placing them directly in contact with farmers and artisans. With a simple click, Cortilia delivers fresh, tasty and genuine products right at the user’s doorstep within 24 hours on the most convenient day and time. The service is available online, and via an iOS and Android app.

Cortilia was first established in 2012 as an online fruit and vegetable market. Today it offers an assortment of almost 2,000 products. It has become the premier online store for the purchase of fresh food, carefully selected by small farmers and artisans, with a fast, precise home delivery service serving 500 towns and cities across the Lombardy, Piedmont and Emilia-Romagna regions. In 2018, Cortilia delivered its products to the homes of over 20,000 Italian families.

The company was founded by Marco Porcaro, a serial entrepreneur with an engineering background. Prior to Cortilia, he Co-Founded Mobaila, a video community service for TELCO operators, and then Viamente, a route planner service, which exited to Workwave in 2012. By combining his passion for technology and food, Cortilia was created to bring seasonal Italian food to the online generation, adhering to a sustainability policy.

Cortilia uses technology to keep everything efficient and sustainable through each step: integrated management of farmers supply chain, use of predictive models for planning orders, offering clients the right products at the right moment (also with the help of AI) and finally the use of an advanced planning tool for delivery optimization. Product surplus amounts to only 1 percent of the volumes and it is donated to Banco Alimentare, a NGO that fights hunger and food waste, in order to help people in need.

The Italian grocery market is worth €150bn, but online service adoption is less than one percent, compared to France and the UK which is 10 times larger. The Italian food delivery market is at the very beginning of this transformation, which place Cortilia is a strong position for expansion and user growth. Currently the service is used predominantly by families with young children and full-time professionals.

The new round of investment will be used to drive growth for the business across Italy. In addition, the company will be investing money into the use of AI and other new technologies to increase standards in quality of food and sustainability.

“I am immensely proud that companies in the world of venture capital as important as Five Seasons and Indaco SGR have decided to invest in Cortilia,” announced Cortilia founder and CEO Marco Porcaro, “a season of great challenges await us and we will tackle them with even greater enthusiasm, because as Italians, we want to play a key role when it comes to innovation in distribution in our country, where online shopping is still in its infancy. We hope that consumers seeking a model that differs from the one proposed by the large-scale retail trade will find what they are looking for in Cortilia.”

Ivan Farneti, Co-Founder of Five Seasons Ventures, added: “From the very first meeting, we realised that Cortilia could be a “hidden gem” and we are extremely proud to be part of this company. In Italy, the penetration of the food e-commerce business is still at low levels, but growing rapidly, and we see Cortilia with the greatest chance of emerging as the champion. The Cortilia management team has the profile and skills at the level we are looking for throughout Europe. They listen carefully to what customers have to say and ensure an open dialogue with their suppliers, and we are convinced that they will be able to make the most of the opportunity offered by the new financial resources.

Antonella Beltrame, an Indaco partner and the Fund Investment Director, added: “In our opinion, the grocery sector will become polarised between Discount and Premium both online and offline, and thanks to its brand, omnichannel approach and technology, Cortilia is certainly on track to dominate the Premium segment, offering high value for all those Customers for whom quality and service are greater priorities.”

The investment also includes further involvement from Primomiglio, already a Cortilia shareholder, through its Barcamper Ventures investment vehicle.

For more information go to: www.cortilia.it