Vilnius-based food supply marketplace Saltz raises €20M in Series A funding from EBRD, Inovo, Lifeline Ventures, and Change Ventures to expand across Europe and transform food distribution.
👯 Founders: Andrius Šlimas, Tomas Šlimas, Reinis Štrodahs
📅 Founding year: 2002
🏭 Industry: FoodTech
💥 Problem: The food distribution sector remains highly fragmented and largely offline. Restaurants often rely on multiple distributors, deal with hidden pricing, and use manual ordering processes. Suppliers also struggle to reach customers efficiently or provide additional services such as payment terms and logistics.
📣 Solution: Saltz is a digital marketplace that connects professional kitchens directly with verified food suppliers. The platform consolidates supplier catalogues, ordering, payments, and logistics into a single interface, simplifying and modernising food distribution.
🌱 Stage: Series A
💰 Investment amount: €20 million
🚀 Funded by: European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Inovo, Lifeline Ventures, Change Ventures, with participation from Mantas Mikuckas (Vinted founder), Miki Kuusi (Wolt founder), several Shopify executives, and other strategic angel investors.
💡 It will be spent on: Expanding across Europe, investing in cross-border food trade technology, improving platform experience for chefs and suppliers, and growing the team by more than 100 employees by the end of 2026.
💬 In their own words:
“Restaurants and suppliers still rely heavily on intermediaries, wasting time and inflating margins. Saltz is building a transparent, simple marketplace that connects chefs directly with suppliers across Europe and beyond,” shared Saltz co-founder Andrius Slimas.
💪 Their specialty: Building global B2B marketplaces. The founding team previously built marketplaces at Oberlo and Shopify.
🔑 Business model: A digital B2B marketplace that facilitates direct transactions between professional kitchens and suppliers, likely generating revenue through platform fees and transaction-based services.
👩🏫 Market: Food distribution and restaurant supply chains across Europe, with ambitions for global expansion.
📊 Traction: Saltz currently operates in 20 countries and provides chefs access to fresh and frozen meat and seafood suppliers through its platform.
