ShelfNow

Launched in 2019, ShelfNow is a B2B online marketplace that bridges the gap between smaller, high-quality food and beverage producers and independent buyers in the hospitality and retail sectors. The business was founded by CEO Philip Linardos and COO Sajid Ghani. "The U.K. wholesale F&B sector is huge, and the EU alone, has a turnover of over €100 billion, with smaller businesses accounting for around 50% of this revenue," says Linardos. Following discussions with hundreds of businesses, it became clear that both SME food brands and buyers lacked the time and resources to research and do direct sales and procurement. "Instead they relied on traditional incumbent middlemen who are expensive, inefficient and lack transparency," says Linardos. The cofounders created an intelligent B2B platform that would harness data-science technologies and the efficiencies of marketplace trading to help producers and buyers trade as directly as possible while lowering costs and enabling buyer and seller relationships to become established. The company handles all payment, billing and fulfillment, further reducing the time spent on admin. Initially self-funded by the founders, they later acquired angel investor funding, raising from several small strategic angels three times. A larger seed round is currently in progress. Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn.