PRESS RELEASE
Paris, 2020-08 – La Belle Vie, a foodtech start-up offering one-hour home grocery delivery, has raised €11.6 million from Capagro, FJ Lab, A Plus Finance and the Celeste Management family office.
Launched in 2015 by serial entrepreneurs Paul Lê and Alban Wienkoop, Labellevie.com’s home delivery service offers over 6,500 everyday conventional supermarket goods (food, personal hygiene and beauty products), but also – and uniquely – a large range of artisanal products sourced from market gardeners, cheese makers, fishmongers, butchers, pastry chefs, bakers and wine sellers.
La Belle Vie now guarantees deliveries in less than 1 hour in Paris, within 3 hours for the Ile-de-France region and 24 hours for the rest of France.
Their service is based on proprietary software – developed in-house and unique in Europe -- that gives them full control over the entire supply chain. La Belle Vie now intends to use their new funding to expand their technological investments and reinforce their leading position in the market.
La Belle Vie experienced significant (x4) growth during the recent lockdown and developed a loyal following among its new customers; it currently makes 12,000 deliveries per week.
The team’s goal is now to significantly expand its services through partnerships with more than 50 new brands (Palais des Thés, Avril Beauté, Joone, and more) over the next 12 months.
Paul Lê, the CEO of LaBelleVie.com, says that “with La Belle Vie, we are focusing on the customer experience and the pleasure of grocery shopping. We want to use the funding we’ve just raised to become the French leader in grocery deliveries. To achieve this we intend to double our workforce (currently 150 employees) by the end of the year.”
For Anne-Valérie Bach, managing director at Capagro, “La Belle Vie immediately appealed to us. As long-time users of the service, we appreciate its quality and value. Paul and Alban demonstrated their ability to rapidly grow the company in an extremely efficient way with limited means. Over the long-term, their unique in-house software structure will guarantee profitability and the ability to grow to capture a significant share of the very lively home-shopping delivery market. We’ve also found many synergies with the industrial partners in our ecosystem to help them accelerate this growth. Our investment should therefore rapidly create value, in line with La Belle Vie's ambitions."
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Press contact: Steele & Holt
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About La Belle Vie (www.labellevie.com)
Launched in June 2015, La Belle Vie is a home grocery delivery company. They deliver in less than 1 hour in Paris, less than 3 hours in the IdF region, and within 24 hours in the rest of France via Chronofood. Their catalogue of 6,500 items includes more than 2,000 fresh products from organic and non-organic greengrocers, butchers, cheesemongers, and homemade delicatessen and bakery items. La Belle Vie employs 150 people and will be recruiting 100 more by the end of the year.
About Capagro (www.capagro.fr)
Capagro is the French leading venture capital fund dedicated to the Food and Ag industries. It was created in 2014 and has 124 M€ under management. Feeding a sustainable planet and maximizing value creation across the entire agri-food chain is its core focus. Capagro has pioneered a sector-based and independent approach that brings out the best of its scientific and business expertise. The fund leverages its unique network of industrial partners, made of key players in the agri-food value chain, to benefit its portfolio companies. Capagro invests to accelerate the development of European FoodTech and AgTech companies and facilitates the adoption of innovative solutions for stakeholders in those sectors. Capagro's team of seasoned investors is unique in combining strong sector expertise with a wide range of international experience.
About FJ labs (www.fjlabs.com)
FJ Labs is an early-stage venture firm/startup studio focused on online marketplaces and consumer Internet companies. Founded by serial entrepreneurs Fabrice Grinda (OLX, Aucland, Zingy) and Jose Marin (Deremate, IG Expansion), FJ Labs has backed over 500 companies including Alibaba, Betterment, Delivery Hero, Fanduel, and Flexport, and has been directly engaged in building companies such as AdoreMe, Merlin, Letgo, and Rebag.
About A Plus Finance (www.aplusfinance.com)
For more than 20 years, A Plus Finance has been investing in the real economy through mainly unlisted assets. The areas of expertise developed within the management company are focused on financing and supporting companies at all stages of their development, from start-up to transmission, real estate, film financing and funds of funds. Each activity has its own management team and offers investment vehicles to both private and institutional investors. As of 31 December 2019, assets under management or advised amounted to nearly €700 million, more than 60% of which is on behalf of institutional investors.
About Celeste Management (www.celeste-management.eu)
Celeste Management is a single-family office based in Geneva primarily investing in alternative asset classes (Private Equity, Infrastructure, Venture, Real Estate, Private Debt), with a broad geographic spread and a long-term horizon. Celeste Management supports ambitious growth projects in promising areas such as the development of renewable energies, reduction of the ecological footprint, education and training, health, the silver economy, nutrition and the transformation of consumer habits, telecom and internet networks, mobility and logistics.