Food Waste Funder Circle - ReFED Inc.

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Food Waste Funder Circle

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Help Fund the Fight Against Food Waste

The Food Waste Funder Circle (FWFC) is a network designed for private, public, and philanthropic funders interested in using their capital to solve food waste challenges. The network offers a curated platform for funder education, collaboration, and investment to help drive the capital flow needed to reach national and international goals to reduce food waste by 50% by the year 2030.

Membership in the FWFC is free and open to both individual funders and representatives from funder organizations.

As a member of the FWFC, you’ll get access to regular programming related to funding food waste innovations; deal flow reports and pitches from solution providers that are actively fundraising; opportunities to work with like-minded funders on industry challenges; and more.

A sampling of FWFC members is below. For the full list of public members, click here.

AJANA FOUNDATION

Member Benefits At-A-Glance:

Education

Learn about investment opportunities and innovation in the food waste sector through webinars and panel events featuring experts and funders.
Get sector trends and insights via our regular Capital & Innovation Market Update newsletter

Collaboration

Connect with like-minded funders to share success stories and lessons learned.
Participate in member-led diligence groups or solution exploration discussions.

Investing

Get to know innovative companies operating in the food waste space through pitch events and demo days.
Access a wide set of funding opportunities with regularly compiled deal flow reports.

Sign up for free or read on for more information about what it’s all about.

Why Fund Solutions to Food Waste?

Food waste is a major driver of climate change, which is affecting the ability of cropland and water resources to produce the amount of food needed to feed our growing population. When food goes uneaten, the resources used to produce it go to waste as well. If all of our country’s surplus food was grown in one place, this “mega-farm” would cover roughly 80 million acres, over three-quarters of the state of California. Growing the food on this wasteful farm would consume all the water used in California and Idaho combined. In addition, uneaten food is the number one product entering landfills, where it has the highest generation potential for methane, an anthropogenic greenhouse gas that’s 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide.

It's also a major drag on our economy, and food that’s currently being wasted could go to support the one in ten Americans who are struggling with food insecurity. (Learn more about the impact of food waste here.)

By reducing food waste, we can cut greenhouse gas emissions, save water, create jobs, and recover food for those in need. And that reduction comes with a significant financial benefit too. ReFED estimates that an annual investment of $18 billion over the next ten years can not only reduce food waste by 58 million tons each year but also result in an annual net financial benefit of $74 billion — a four-to-one return.

With the Food Waste Funder Circle, ReFED is partnering with funders to accelerate the flow of capital to reach our 2030 food waste reduction target and attain the resulting financial, social, and environmental benefits.

Detailed Member Offerings

Membership in the FWFC is free.

All FWFC members receive at no cost:

Market update newsletters highlighting industry news and events
Monthly deal flow reports, which list active funding opportunities in the sector (private investment and philanthropic funding opportunities)
Educational events with like-minded funders from across the capital spectrum, including pitch sessions and innovation demo days
Opportunities to participate in “deep dives” on particular issues through diligence groups
Networking opportunities with fellow members, supported by a FWFC member directory
Access to dedicated “office hour” sessions with ReFED and/or its program partners

Join the Food Waste Funders Circle

The Food Waste Funder Circle is for capital providers only. If you're a solution provider who wants to share your fundraising needs with the membership, please fill out this survey instead.

Contact [email protected] with questions about FWFC membership and sponsorship.

Become a Member See Public Members

Member Events

We’re curating a series of special events specifically for FWFC members, who can participate in real time or by viewing videos after each event. Learn from leaders and experts across the food system about various food waste topics such as the climate/food waste connection; new business models and approaches to reducing food waste; the role of catalytic capital in scaling innovation in food waste solutions; and more.

Past Events

Innovation Demo Day: International Food Waste Reduction Solutions

August 23, 2023

Don’t miss out and register today to learn more about innovative approaches and technologies for reducing food waste around the world!

March 16, 2023

It's time for the first Food Waste Funder Circle Pitch Event of 2023, featuring pitches from Peelon, Metafoodx, Silo, SCO2, and Matriark. Reserve your spot today.

October 20, 2022

Join us for another pitch event hosted by ReFED's Food Waste Funder Circle (FWFC)! We'll hear from ANINA, ClearCOGS, Applied AI, Forager, and Sincarne during this one hour session

September 15, 2022

Join us in this hour-long webinar, moderated by Dennis Price of ImpactAlpha, to meet some of these explorers as they discuss how they have structured their funding to unlock outsized impact and how they have adjusted their practices and approaches to support the outcomes that they want to achieve.

June 2, 2022

During the pitch event, you'll hear each organization’s 5 minute pitch and have the chance to ask questions via chat. Premium FWFC members will have the opportunity to note if they'd like to join a separate, future Q&A session with any of the companies.

May 5, 2022

WATS is a zero waste services company, with a team made up of consultants, educators, data geeks, composters, and micro-mobility specialists. After spending 8 years delivering consulting services with an eye focused on facilitating organics recycling in businesses, they are building a digital platform to help businesses organize, manage, track and report on their waste operations. They are raising $1.5M for marketing and sales, customer success, product, and admin.

May 5, 2022

Transparent Path is a for-profit real-time supply chain visibility platform aimed at tracking shipments of high-margin perishables. They attach always-on cellular sensor devices at time of shipment, and track location, temperature, humidity, tilt, shock and other factors while perishables are in transit. They’re currently raising a $2M seed round, and will open their $4M Series A in August.

May 5, 2022

Replate is a nonprofit that leverages technology to reduce food waste and improve access to nutritious food by redistributing surplus food to community organizations. Replate is fundraising to build a white-label software package to empower businesses, cities, CBOs, and other food rescue organizations (FROs) with their sophisticated food rescue technology. The team is also developing a mechanism to report nutritional content of donated food, including macro-balance and micro-nutrient profiles for insights into health impacts. They’re raising $7M for SaaS tech development, establishing SaaS pilots, FFS market expansion, and food rescue operations.

April 21, 2022

MyGug develops micro scale anaerobic digesters designed for the mass market. MyGug is a Food Waste treatment system that fully integrates into household/small food business settings. It will operate in all weathers and climates from -20 deg C to +40 deg C and will provide a clean fossil fuel free solution to disposing of food waste. They are raising $1.5M to fund their growth for the next 18-24 months.

April 21, 2022

Blakbear replaces use-by dates on food with a smart label that measures freshness. They sell freshness sensors and a cloud API, to improve quality control, add shelf-life and cut food waste. They’re fundraising $3M to scale-up (Hiring, Manufacturing) and for R&D.

April 21, 2022

FreshX is an early-stage SaaS startup building an AI-driven transaction platform for fresh produce buyers and sellers. FreshX combines an online transaction platform with real-time market information and AI-enabled forecasting, which allows produce buyers and sellers to connect and transact more easily and efficiently and allows customers to make data-driven decisions. This results in fresher products and less waste in the supply chain. They’re seeking $500K to accelerate their growth.

March 30, 2022

Blended finance solutions have been used increasingly over the last ten years to mobilize capital to help achieve the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. For this special webinar, speakers will explore how blended finance works – and how it can help advance and scale food waste solutions.

Hosted by the Food Waste Funder Circle.

March 24, 2022

The Kawa Project builds a platform to convert food waste streams into sustainable ingredients. They have developed an affordable cocoa powder replacement and palm oil replacement from upcycled material, with the aim to bring their first product to market in 2022. They are raising $3M in seed funding to refine and launch their Kawa Home CPG line, finalize engineering, and build their team.

March 24, 2022

Hidden Gems beverage company is finding new, creative and nutritious ways to efficiently use food waste. Their first product is: Reveal- an antioxidant-rich beverage made from upcycled avocado seeds. It contains 3x the amount of antioxidants in green tea, is gut healthy, and has zero added sugar. They are raising $1.5M in seed funding to build visibility, build case studies for retailers, and prepare their study for the FDA GRAS.

March 24, 2022

NETZRO is a state-of-art upcycling platform that includes patent-pending tech that helps power the safe capture and conversion of industrial food & beverage byproducts into new sustainable upcycled food ingredients at scale. NETZRO is fundraising $1.5M.

March 10, 2022

Therma is a for-profit company that builds tools to increase safety and sustainability from farm to fork.

March 10, 2022

Turn is a 3-year-old sustainability company based in DFW, Texas with both DTC and B2B services for food waste recycling including a 5-year contract with DFW International Airport.

March 10, 2022

California Safe Soil (CSS) is a for-profit company that recovers food from supermarkets and, using its proprietary process, creates upcycled organic fertilizer and pet food ingredients.

February 24, 2022

Association of Gleaning Organizations is a nonprofit that builds the capacity of organizations recovering fresh fruits and vegetables from farms, gardens, and backyards across North America.

February 24, 2022

Hollywood Food Coalition is a nonprofit that provides nutritionally complete, restaurant-like meals to food-insecure neighbors in LA, in addition to rescuing food through their Community Exchange program, which is a concierge food rescue and distribution service that provides food to small to medium-sized nonprofits throughout L.A. County.

February 10, 2022

Gander is a multi award winning app that shows consumers reduced-price food available in retailers in real time, inspiring motivated shoppers to purchase them before they become surplus or waste.

February 10, 2022

Renewal Mill is an award-winning upcycled food company fighting climate change with upcycled flours & baking mixes.

February 10, 2022

FOR Solutions provides state-of-the-art, value-engineered composting systems based on patented composting biotechnology that transform uneaten food into nutrient-dense, pathogen-free compost in just 5 days.

December 8, 2021

I Am Grounded, is a for-profit upcycling company that turns coffee fruit, which is a natural byproduct of the coffee farming process, into delicious energy snacks.

December 8, 2021

Farmlink Project, is a nonprofit that connects farmers to food banks, delivering millions of pounds of farm fresh produce that would otherwise be wasted to families in need.

December 8, 2021

Learn more about the enormous investment and impact potential to be had in the food waste sector by joining us on December 8 as we introduce the new nationwide Food Waste Funder Circle. The Food Waste Funder Circle is a network for private, public and philanthropic funders that will build the ecosystem required to fight food waste by creating a platform for funder education, collaboration, and investment.

Deal Flow Reports

Each month, Food Waste Funder Circle members receive an updated list of solution providers that are currently seeking various types of funding. The table below represents the cumulative listing of all of those fundraising initiatives for the calendar year 2023.

Member Spotlights

Our Member Spotlight Series features a different FWFC member organization for each installment – including any asks or offers that they have for the membership. The goal of the Member Spotlight Series is to give FWFC members a peek into the work that others in our community are doing and to connect members who could potentially benefit from a collaboration.

Branch Venture Group

Branch Venture Group (BVG) is a Boston-based angel investment network that provides funding and connections to early-stage food-related companies. We work with our angel investor members to identify, diligence, and invest in pre-seed and seed stage startups launching new products, technologies, and services for the food industry. Our primary focus is investing in entrepreneurs raising under $3M with the capacity to syndicate larger opportunities through other networks and venture firms. We currently have 15 portfolio companies, participated in 26 financing rounds, and were the second most active investment network nationwide focused on funding food-related startups in 2021.

Learn More

Fairbridge Park

We are an early stage fund that aspires to be the partner of choice for entrepreneurs that are tackling pertinent socieconomic problems. We enjoy working with purpose-driven entrepreneurs who are leveraging technology to address key challenges in foundational areas of financial/economic resilience and also in the health and wellness sector.

Learn More

Trailhead Capital

Trailhead Capital is a mission-driven investment firm that seeks to create financial, societal, and ecological returns by backing entrepreneurs who are building the regenerative future of food and agriculture. The firm's flagship Regeneration Fund invests in regenerative agriculture companies at the Seed and Series A stages using Ag/FoodTech and business model innovation to accomplish this mission. Trailhead believes that deploying this vital capital represents the single greatest opportunity to improve human, soil, and planetary health today.

Learn More

Food Waste Funders Circle Public Members

The following organizations are public members of the Food Waste Funder Circle. We're excited to have you join them

See FAQ

Who is the ReFED Food Waste Funders Circle for?

The Food Waste Funders Circle (FWFC) is a special network designed for private, public, and philanthropic funders interested in using their capital to solve food waste challenges. Membership in the FWFC is free and open to both individual funders and representatives from funder organizations. The FWFC offers a curated platform for funder education, collaboration, and investment to help drive the capital flow needed to reach national and international goals to reduce food waste by 50% by the year 2030.

Why become a member of the Food Waste Funder Circle?

The FWFC is the only funder network focused exclusively on opportunities within the food waste space. As a member of the FWFC, you’ll benefit from:

Education - Learn more about investment opportunities and innovation in the food waste sector through webinars and panel events featuring experts and funders. Get sector trends and insights via regular newsletters

Collaboration - Connect with like-minded funders to share success stories and lessons learned. Participate in member-led diligence groups or solution exploration discussions

Investing - Get to know innovative companies operating in the food waste space through pitch events and demo days Access a wide set of funding opportunities with a regularly compiled deal flow report

How much does it cost to join?

The Food Waste Funder Circle is free to join.

All members receive benefits including market update newsletters highlighting industry updates and events; monthly deal flow reports listing active investment opportunities in the sector; quarterly educational events with like-minded funders from across the capital spectrum; access to quarterly pitch events; opportunities to participate in bespoke “deep dives” on particular issues through diligence; networking opportunities with fellow members, supported by a FWFC member directory; and access to dedicated “office hour” sessions with ReFED and/or its program partners.

How is the Food Waste Funder Circle different from the ReFED Food Waste Action Network?

The Food Waste Funder Circle is dedicated exclusively to supporting capital providers of all types who are interested in funding solutions to food waste challenges. It provides a distinct set of offerings from the ReFED Food Waste Action Network (FWAN), which covers a broader range of food waste topics. FWFC members are encouraged to participate in FWAN activities (which are open to the public), but FWAN members need to also be FWFC members to participate in FWFC activities.

Can I share this with others?

Absolutely – if you have a recommendation of an individual or company that should join the Food Waste Funder Circle, please share this with them.

Who can I contact for more information?

f you have any questions, please contact the Funder Circle team at [email protected]

How do I sign up?

Click here to fill out the short application form.

"There’s so much opportunity in the food waste space right now, and to keep building on that, it’s more important than ever to make sure that funders have the information they need to make smart investment decisions and have access to a network of fundable initiatives and partners ready to collaborate."

Alexandria Coari / Vice President, Capital, Innovation & Engagement

ReFED

"There’s loss and waste at every stage of the food supply chain, so we need a full range of solutions – including upcycling – to fight it. The Food Waste Funder Circle is a way to connect capital providers to all the potential that the food waste space has to offer."

Turner Wyatt / Chief Executive Officer

Upcycled Food Association

The Food Waste Funder Circle was designed to help its members understand the food waste reduction landscape, explore investment opportunities, and find partners for collaboration – ultimately bridging the funding gap that exists at the intersection of food waste innovation and capital. Join now and put yourself at the center of the food waste funding conversation.

Become a Member

Food Waste Funder Circle - ReFED Inc.

Ways to Engage