The archive · Logistics & Supply · Product decision · 2021–2026
Freshflow: fresh aisles need their own AI — a $10M bet from Reimann Investors
Two founders who met at Entrepreneur First built ordering AI for perishables from scratch, then raised a $10M Series A led by Reimann Investors.
Freshflow
What the business is
Freshflow, founded in Berlin in 2021, sells an AI platform that automates daily replenishment ordering in grocery stores' fresh departments. Its in-house, fresh-native stack models demand, infers actual inventory, predicts spoilage and routes supplier orders, and store staff use an app that tells them what to order, from which supplier and in what quantity. The company says it is live at nine leading grocery retailers in Germany and France, including merchants within EDEKA, Carrefour, Intermarché and Stroetmann groups, and plans to extend from fresh produce to meat, bakery and in-store production, then upstream into warehouse and distribution-centre replenishment.
Starting capital：Series A of $10M announced June 2026, led by Munich-based Reimann Investors, with Capnamic, caesar., World Fund, Venture Stars and Catatumbo Capital re-investing and IBB Ventures joining. Earlier: a €1.7M seed in 2022 led by Capnamic and World Fund, and a €6.5M round that closed in May 2025, per PitchBook.
How it started
Avik Mukhija, a machine-learning scientist who had built and sold AI for grocery retailers, and Carmine Paolino, also an ML scientist, met at Entrepreneur First and decided to attack supermarket fresh-food waste; Freshflow was founded in Berlin in 2021. A €1.7M seed round in 2022, led by Capnamic and World Fund, funded early deployments with one of Germany's largest grocery retailers, and the founders' stated aim was to rebuild fresh replenishment from first principles rather than bolt fresh onto dry-goods forecasting, which the industry had tried and shelved for decades.
What happened
Freshflow spent five years building its fresh-native AI in-house and taking it into stores: the app guides staff on what to order each morning, and the company claims up to 30% less spoilage, 2–4% more revenue and around 93% acceptance of its recommendations. A €6.5M round closed in May 2025 with the same core investors, and by 2026 Freshflow was in daily operations at nine retailers in Germany and France, including merchants inside EDEKA, Carrefour, Intermarché and Stroetmann groups. In June 2026 it announced a $10M Series A led by Reimann Investors, with all prior investors re-upping and IBB Ventures joining.
How it ended up
As of the June 2026 round, Freshflow is scaling category by category: meat, bakery and in-store production by Q4 2026, then warehouse and distribution-centre replenishment, with 30+ hires planned across Berlin and Paris. It says it will deepen DACH and France and expand into further European markets from 2027. The performance numbers are company-reported, no revenue or profitability is disclosed, and the leap from a store-level ordering tool to a control system for the whole fresh supply chain is still unproven.
Background
Freshflow was founded in Berlin in 2021 by Avik Mukhija and Carmine Paolino, two machine-learning scientists who met at Entrepreneur First and chose supermarket fresh-food waste as their problem. A €1.7M seed round in 2022, led by Capnamic and World Fund, funded early deployments, and the pair's stated strategy was to rebuild fresh replenishment from first principles rather than bolt fresh onto dry-goods forecasting, which the industry had tried and quietly shelved for decades.
The product is a fresh-native AI stack: a demand model, inventory inference, spoilage prediction and supplier routing, all built in-house for perishables, wrapped in an app that store staff use every morning to decide what to order, from which supplier and in what quantity. Freshflow's argument is structural — fresh inventory is effectively unknown to any ERP, shelf life runs in days, loose produce has no barcodes and hundreds of ordering decisions are made per store daily, so generic forecasting tools built for canned and packaged goods never fit.
In June 2026 Freshflow announced a $10M Series A led by Munich-based Reimann Investors, with Capnamic, caesar., World Fund, Venture Stars and Catatumbo Capital all re-investing and IBB Ventures joining. The company claims its platform, live at nine grocery retailers across Germany and France, cuts spoilage by up to 30% per store, lifts revenue by 2–4%, and earns 93% acceptance of its recommendations from store staff, versus a 50–60% industry standard for classical forecasting systems.
The capital will fund expansion of the AI from fresh produce to meat, bakery and in-store production by Q4 2026, push the platform upstream from stores into warehouses, distribution centres and producers, and pay for 30+ hires across Berlin and Paris. All performance claims are company-reported, no revenue or profitability is disclosed, and the open question is whether a store-level ordering assistant can grow into the control system for Europe's fresh supply chain before grocers or forecasting incumbents build their own.
What has to be true
- The generic tool was provably wrong for the vertical: twenty years of automated dry-goods ordering never fixed fresh, because shelf life, unlabeled produce and unknown inventory break its assumptions.
- Fresh-native components are the defensible stack: demand, inventory inference, spoilage prediction and supplier routing built from scratch, with no recycled dry-goods layer for incumbents to copy.
- Trust at the shelf is the moat: at roughly 93% acceptance against a 50–60% industry norm, staff place the AI's order every day, which is exactly how the model keeps learning from real stores.
- Repeat capital is the tell: Capnamic, World Fund, caesar., Venture Stars and Catatumbo all re-upped through three rounds on the same store-level metrics, not on a pivot story.
What can be applied
Don't retrofit a vertical: generic forecasting failed on fresh for twenty years because perishables break its model; build for the vertical and store staff actually take the recommendation.
Aftermath
As of June 2026 Freshflow was deploying its $10M Series A to extend the AI from produce to meat, bakery and in-store production by Q4 2026, push upstream into warehouses and distribution centres, and hire 30+ people in Berlin and Paris. It serves nine grocery retailers in Germany and France, planning further European expansion from 2027. Its figures — up to 30% less spoilage, 2–4% more revenue, 93% staff acceptance — are company-reported, no revenue is disclosed, and whether a store-level ordering tool can become the control system for Europe's fresh supply chain remains unproven.
Sources
- AI-powered grocery ordering platform Freshflow raises €1.7m to save retailers time, money and stock
- Freshflow brings AI to Europe's fresh aisles and closes $10M Series A
- Freshflow - $10M Series A - led by Reimann Investors
- Berlin-based Freshflow raises $10M series A to cut food waste with AI
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