Oberlo Veterans Raise €20M to Transform Europe’s Restaurant Supply
▼ Summary
– Lithuanian startup Saltz, a digital marketplace connecting restaurants directly with food suppliers, has raised €20 million in a Series A round from investors including the EBRD, Inovo, and Lifeline Ventures.
– The company was co-founded in 2022 by the Šlimas brothers, who previously sold Oberlo to Shopify, and supply chain veteran Reinis Strodahs to bring transparency and efficiency to the fragmented restaurant procurement industry.
– The funding will be used to expand into new European markets, grow the team by over 100 people by 2026, and further develop the platform’s product and engineering capabilities.
– Saltz’s model eliminates middlemen by providing a single interface for cross-border ordering with transparent pricing, addressing an industry traditionally reliant on opaque, relationship-based deals and paper processes.
– The round features notable angel investors like Wolt’s Miki Kuusi and Vinted’s Mantas Mikuckas, whose expertise in scaling marketplaces and restaurant logistics adds strategic value to the company’s expansion.
A new Lithuanian startup founded by the team behind the successful e-commerce tool Oberlo has secured significant funding to tackle a surprisingly analog sector. Saltz, a digital marketplace designed to streamline how professional kitchens source ingredients, has raised €20 million in a Series A round. The investment will fuel an aggressive expansion across Europe, aiming to bring transparency and efficiency to a restaurant supply chain still dominated by phone calls, paper forms, and layers of costly intermediaries.
The venture is the brainchild of brothers Andrius and Tomas Šlimas, who sold their dropshipping platform Oberlo to Shopify in 2017, and Reinis Strodahs, a veteran with twenty years of experience in European restaurant logistics. After their tenure at Shopify, the Šlimas brothers sought another fragmented industry ripe for modernization. They found it in the chaotic world of restaurant procurement, where chefs often rely on a tangled network of distributors, each with opaque pricing and cumbersome ordering processes. Strodahs provided the crucial operational expertise, having long observed the sector’s resistance to digital change despite the complexities of managing perishable goods and tight delivery schedules.
Saltz operates as a unified platform, connecting restaurants directly with food producers and verified suppliers. The model promises transparent pricing, cross-border ordering, and the elimination of multiple middlemen. To manage the logistical hurdles of fresh food, the company employs a cross-docking system where products move directly from suppliers to kitchens without lengthy warehouse storage, supported by integrated route-optimization software.
This €20 million capital injection was led by a notable consortium of investors, underscoring confidence in the startup’s vision. Institutional backers include the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the Warsaw-based venture fund Inovo, and returning seed investors Lifeline Ventures and Change Ventures. The round also attracted strategic angel investment from Miki Kuusi, co-founder of Wolt, and Mantas Mikuckas, co-founder of Vinted. Their experience in scaling marketplace models and building restaurant networks across Europe is considered invaluable for Saltz’s growth phase.
The funds are earmarked for geographic expansion into new European markets, significant team growth, and further platform development. The company plans to hire over 100 new employees by the end of 2026, focusing on engineering, product, sales, and operations. Having already served clients in five countries during its seed stage, including major hotel chains like Hilton and Marriott, Saltz is now positioned to accelerate its mission of digitizing one of the continent’s last offline commercial frontiers.
(Source: The Next Web)
