Scottish seafood trading platform Rooser has secured $23m (£18m) in its Series A funding led by Index Ventures.
The Edinburgh-headquartered startup will use the funding to scale its trading platform and build its marketplace. It will also develop its stock management software for primary processors, quality controls, supply chain financing and personalised features.
Rooser is also launching a seven-day payment option for suppliers.
Founded in 2019, Rooser is a cloud-based platform for trading seafood between buyers and suppliers with the aim to reduce wastage and increase margins.
Fish can be sold up to seven times and for every two fish that are eaten one is wasted, according to Rooser.
Fish suppliers can use Rooser’s sea store to upload and manage their own online store. Store owners can sell to existing customers or find new ones. Buyers can filter by species, fishing area, method, delivery time and quality.
“The seafood industry is like this giant machine, with all these gears turning all the time at breakneck speed,” said Joel Watt, CEO and founder, Rooser.
“I saw the chaos for myself. Rooser was what we hacked together to solve the problem for our factory, and we realised the opportunity when other processors started wanting the software for themselves.”
According to Rooser, it is estimated that €140bn (£1.18bn) of fish is traded within Europe every year across 140,000 businesses.
The round also saw participation from Google Ventures and Point Nine Capital. Existing angel investors included Dylan Field and David Nothacker.
Rooser currently employs 27 people and trades across 13 countries. In the future it plans to add data analytics to its platform.
Index Ventures invests from seed to IPO with prior investments including Dropbox, Deliveroo and Slack.
“The seafood market is huge, but it’s fragmented and mostly offline. Rooser promises to make the whole experience simpler and more efficient for everyone in the value chain – improving margins, reducing waste, giving buyers greater choice and sellers a bigger market,” said Georgia Stevenson, partner, Index Ventures.
The post Seafood trading platform Rooser reels in £18m to reduce fish waste appeared first on UKTN | UK Tech News.
