Emerging e-grocery company, Alorsfaim, raises €4M in Seed funding round
October 20, 2021
Europe
October 20, 2021 Paris – Alorsfaim, a Paris-based e-grocery company specializing in authentic and high-quality Asian food, raised €4M in seed funding, enabling the fast-growing start-up to continue its rapid expansion across the vast Asian community in France and Europe. The round was led by iFly.vc with participation from Cathay Innovation and Goodwater Capital.
Founded in 2018, Alorsfaim initially started as a meal delivery platform collaborating with over 600 authentic Asian restaurants. In March 2020, during the most challenging period of the pandemic in France, the company launched its e-grocery delivery service to help sustain the Asian community’s access to products in high demand. From the company’s earliest beginnings, the founders – Yejun Fan and Yingfeng Li have always shared the belief that when it comes to food, quality and accessibility should never be compromised. Even after expanding into the grocery business, the same core value remains and has been scaled up to the next level.
After witnessing the shortcomings of relying on third parties, especially with regards to stock management and customer experience, the team quickly decided to build their own warehouse and inventory management system. In less than a year, Alorsfaim expanded its service to 5 regions in France and 3 cities in Belgium leading to an explosion of its monthly revenues which multiplied by more than 10 over the period.
Alorsfaim is now looking forward to deploying the new funds on the development of their logistics capabilities and the expansion of its team to sustain its rapid growth. Already benefitting from a rich and diverse talent pool of engineers, bankers, grocery industry veterans and marketing specialists, the company seeks to attract more talented professionals to the rising e-grocery sector. The next step in Alorsfaim’s strategy consists of adding to its product offering and expanding its activities across Europe.
From his first contact with the founders and team, Han Shen, Founding Partner of iFly.vc, a US-based fund, was struck by the alignment in vision and values between Alorsfaim and iFly.vc: “The exceptional harmony between them regarding the growth strategy and business model to adopt led to a natural partnership. iFly.vc has witnessed first-hand the phenomenal growth of Weee! in the past few years, which confirmed Alorsfaim’s vision with regards to the promising future of “DtoC grocery delivery for underserved ethnic communities”, and how to go about building a systemic advantage in that field. Our trust was further deepened by the motivation and commitment of Alorsfaim’s team members, who are very talented, full of vigor, and eager to learn. I invest in teams who are capable of acting fast. Alorsfaim’s team reminds me of Weee! in the early days.“
Jean-François Cochy, Investment Director at Cathay Innovation, agrees on the soundness and high potential of Alorsfaim’s e-grocery business model as it addresses a high and hidden demand for daily groceries from the underserved Asian community in France. “ Over the past few years, we witnessed and participated as investors in the development of the e-groceries and smart-retailing market in Europe, through our investments in Glovo, and in other parts of the World, notably with Pinduoduo and Cloudpick. Beyond a first wave of generalist players providing mainstream products, we foresee the emergence of a new generation of players catering to the specific needs of ethnic communities – which are massively underserved. We are convinced Alorsfaim can become a leader in this market in Europe. Cathay Innovation will support the development of the company with our global platform linking resources in logistics, technology and brands, as well as leverage our existing partnerships with major corporate investors such as Pernod Ricard.”
Yejun FAN, Founder and CEO of Alorsfaim explains: “Originally targeting Asian consumers based in France, the company has created a huge customer base through its food delivery business within a short period. Now, the company is expanding its services to e-grocery, allowing customers to reach a wide range of quality, well-selected, and previously unobtainable products to satisfy all their needs. Given the current market situation, the company must provide the best products and impeccable customer experience by delivering the promised service to its fast-growing customer base. With the additional funds, the team is now on the right path to achieve this objective.”
The company has developed a mobile application providing both E-grocery and food delivery services and will launch its website before the end of the end to fulfill a broader range of customer needs and tastes.
Additional Data List:
- Growth rate of monthly revenue: 10x+ (comparing December 2020 to January 2020)
- Growth rate of quarterly order volume: 5x+ (Q1 2021 VS Q1 2020)
About Alorsfaim
Alorsfaim is a Paris-based e-grocery company specializing in authentic and high-quality Asian food, enabling the underserved ethnic communities to reach a wide range of quality and well-selected products. Fueled by more than 100K users who are looking for a range of Hard-to-Find products, Alorsfaim assures an impeccable customer experience by creating meaningful connection with them.
For more information, please visit www.alorsfaim.com
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About iFly.vc
Based in Austin, TX, iFly.vc embraces investment opportunities in spaces that may appear unglamorous but carry tremendous growth potential. It focuses on technology-enabled transformation across the value chain of traditional industries to address underserved and underappreciated demand. iFly currently invests out of Fund II with a total AUM close to $100m. To learn more, please visit https://iFly.vc or follow us on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/company/ifly-vc.
About Cathay Innovation
Cathay Innovation is a global venture capital partnership, created in affiliation with Cathay Capital, investing in startups at the center of the digital revolution across North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa. Its global platform unifies technology investment across continents, investors, entrepreneurs and leading corporations to accelerate startup growth with access to new markets, invaluable industry knowledge and introductions to potential partners from the start. As a multistage fund with over $1.5 billion assets under management and offices across San Francisco, New York, Paris, Shanghai, Beijing and Singapore, Cathay Innovation partners with visionary entrepreneurs and startups positively impacting the world through technology.
To learn more, please visit www.cathayinnovation.com or follow us on Twitter @Cathayinnov.