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There are 8600+ food-tech startups, with the top 2700 attracting USD 34.9B in funding. Do these numbers startle you? 

These are the numbers for the food and beverage industry including companies that predominantly use internet-based technologies. It facilitates the preparation and distribution of their food and beverages.

Are you planning to try your hands in this industry? You can choose to offer services that can range from online platforms to discover, SaaS-based solutions, or offer platters as per the evolving customer palate.

The Prevailing Conditions

The demand for the food tech space saw rampant growth in the last two years, .i.e. 2019 and 2020. One-third of the total investment corpus that came into the food and beverages is in this period alone. 

There is a rise of new services, like IoT-enabled food appliances development, aggregation of food-related content, or custom solutions as per the need.

The segments like restaurant aggregator, food discovery, shared kitchen, food ordering, and dairy substitute are attracting significant funds. 

Foodtech is attracting the companies like Y Combinator, Play Tech Center, 500 Startups, Techstars, and FoodBytes. The presence of these entities is ensuring an active and steady flow of investment in the sector.

The Players

The startups have different classifications as per their valuations. Names like minicorn, unicorn, or soonicorn can sound like cartoons to you. In reality, all of these are the types of startups.

Minicorns 

Companies with valuations of more than $ 1 million are minicorn startups. They are rising to become unicorn startups. These are on an early-stage high growth trajectory. You can keep an eye on them as they scale up with accelerated growth.

Several ventures make the cut: 

• Robotics for food delivery – Bear Robotics, Shenzhen Pudu Technology, Spyce
• Ordering and Booking App – Ritual, Too Good To Go, Allset Technologies, EazyDine, OLIO, Peachd, Manna
• Services – HungerBox, Winnow, ClusterTruck, Plum, 
• Smart Appliances and solutions for F&B – Tovala, Omnivore, Tock
• Material Supply – DouxMatok, Shiok Meats, Future Meat Technologies
• Internet Restaurants – Allplants, koia

Soonicorns

The companies that can join the unicorn club soon and have higher growth potential are soonicorn startups. These get financed and funded by a venture capitalist or an angel investor. They make their decision based on the firm valuations and future industry forecasts. 

Such valuations always tend to cross the actual valuation of the startups. It can also happen that larger organizations acquire the startups, which leads to increased valuations. It aids the startups to make it to the soonicorn club sooner than expected. They inch close to a USD 1B asset valuation.

Several ventures belong to this set: 

• Online Ordering – Wolt, Chowbus, Jahez, Hungry
• Products – Perfect Day, Mosa Meat, Bellwether Coffee, Good Catch, Nutpods
• Service – cure.fit, Ordermark, Swile, Bevi, Day Two, Kitchen United
• Material Supply -Motif FoodWorks, Memphis Meats, BlueNalu
• SaaS – BentoBox
• Solutions – Innit, Deliverect
• Internet Restaurants – Little Spoon

Unicorns

Unicorn startups refer to companies that have a valuation of one billion dollars or more. The valuation computation is generally by venture capitalists. The term first appeared in 2013 when Cowboy Ventures’ founder Aileen Lee quoted it. The list refers to the cream of the lot.

Several ventures make it to this set: 

• Online Ordering – Deliveroo, Swiggy
• Hyperlocal services – Glovo

The Aid

Several factors are helping to fuel this rapid growth of the food tech space. 

Restaurateurs are opting to use the most advanced technology and the latest equipment to delight the customers. It can include the use of 

• Mobile-based apps, 
• AI-enabled recommendations, 
• QR-based menu display, 
• Smart camera-aided services, 
• Contactless payments, 
• Tracing of ingredients,  
• Online meals customization,
• Online order tracking

These have become a regular norm today. With passing time, there will be higher use of tech integrations. They are also adopting every measure possible to adhere to the food safety and hygiene guidelines. 

The use of shrinkwraps is aiding in achieving these objectives. There are various types of shrink wrap machines in the market. The difference between automatic shrink wrap machines and shrink wrap machines is in their speed and daily output.

They can both help to support you in serving the various types of food and beverages. The shrink wraps can help to cover most of the edible products and ensure the utmost hygiene conditions.

So as you see, there is a massive uptick in the food tech space and is attracting significant investment. If you are keen on joining the industry, it is high time that you get in. You can choose to adopt the latest technology and gizmos to make your work easier.