Berlin-based food technology company Milano Vice has raised a €8.3 million Series A round to expand its innovative, new restaurant model. The funding round was led by Coefficient Capital, with participation from True, Geschwister Oetker and Speedinvest.
The company also received investments from notable food technology and delivery entrepreneurs, including Ole Strohschnieder, Co-Founder of Just Spices; David Brunier, Co-Founder of Flash Coffee; Christian Gaiser, Co-Founder of Numa and founding investor Fabian Wittleben CG Partners. The investment will scale operations and expand the business across Germany and internationally.
Milano Vice was founded in 2021 by Rudolf Donauer, CEO, and Dennis Murselovic, MD, after working together at Delivery Hero, the global food delivery company based in Berlin. Together, they set out to build Milano Vice, the world’s first and only digitally-powered, delivery-first pizza restaurant concept. Since its launch in January 2022, Milano Vice has sold over 1M pizzas in Berlin, Hamburg, Frankfurt am Main and North Rhine-Westphalia. They currently partner with over 60 businesses in Germany.
Rudolf Donauer, Co-Founder & CEO of Milano Vice, said: “We always wanted to create something that would have a positive impact on food entrepreneurs, and the work we’ve been doing with Milano Vice is in service of this vision. We are building the restaurant of the future with a pizza brand that has a best-in-class delivery system, tastes great, and also helps small food businesses and restaurants grow their income.”
Many food businesses and restaurants in Germany struggle to cover their initial investments because of underutilised kitchens, growing inflation, and rising rents and food prices. While restaurant owners have to put down large amounts up-front to build the infrastructure of their restaurants, most kitchens only utilise 40 per cent of the day (based on Milano Vice’s calculations) and take many years to pay back.
Milano Vice is revolutionising the industry by redesigning the restaurant business model for the modern consumer in the digital age. The company partners with professional kitchens, leveraging their underutilised potential to prepare and deliver elevated pizzas to their consumers’ homes, enabling small business owners to more than quadruple their sales. One bakery in Berlin, for example, went from generating €20K in monthly sales to €95K through the partnership with Milano Vice.
The company is building a category-defining lifestyle pizza brand for the modern consumer, Millennials and GenZ. Milano Vice already has some of the highest reviews of any chain restaurant in Germany and industry-leading repeat rates. The brand is further bolstered through local events, creator collaborations, and streetwear partnerships.
The company built proprietary technology across the value chain to drive a superior partner and consumer experience. For example, the company uses artificial intelligence and computer vision technology to track the quality of freshly prepared pizzas and make sure the product is meeting the company’s high standards. Milano Vice also recently launched a new online ordering platform providing a direct-to-consumer experience for the consumer and will leverage gamification to drive loyalty.
Arpon Ray, Partner at Coefficient Capital, commented: “We have been looking for innovative models in food delivery and were immediately impressed with the capital-efficient business model Rudolf and Dennis created. We think their focus on using proprietary technology will be a major differentiator, and their approach to brand building will resonate with today’s consumer.”
The company launched its first pop-up physical location in October 2023 in Berlin (Münzstraße 11, 10178 Berlin), where customers can order whole pizzas and individual slices. Milano Vice will continue to grow its brand through a multichannel strategy and expand its physical presence through small-format locations leveraging alternative real estate.
“The strong team of Milano Vice created a modern pizza brand that focuses on tasty pizza of high quality and with a culinary twist, as well as digitalizing and optimizing the daily business of many smaller restaurants and owner-led food joints. We are excited about the opportunity of bringing together happy customers and successful food entrepreneurs,” added Sven Wiszniewski, Investment Manager at Geschwister Oetker Beteiligungen KG.
Joe Seager-Dupuy, Director of VC at True, said: “The team at Milano Vice has built a unique and distinctive brand backed up by an innovative product and business model to become one of the top choices for pizza in Germany. This Series A is a testament to the momentum they have achieved with consumers and partners, and we are excited to see Milano Vice taken to the next level.”
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- Source: https://www.eu-startups.com/2023/12/berlin-based-milano-vice-snaps-e8-3-million-to-expand-its-digitally-powered-delivery-first-pizza-restaurant-model/
