Cleantech Invest becomes a shareholder in fast-growing ‘food-rescuing’ company ResQ Club
Cleantech Invest has made an investment in ResQ Club by subscribing new shares in the company representing 6.5 % of the shares after the investment. In addition, Cleantech Invest has entered into a share exchange agreement with two of ResQ Club’s current shareholders, to further increase its shareholding in the company by approximately 2.2 %. After the investment and share exchange, Cleantech Invest owns 8.7% of ResQ Club. Other participants in the investment round include Cleantech Invest board member, previous Tesla Motors VP Peter Carlsson, Itrim founder Martin Anderlind, and HYY Yhtymä, the asset management company of the student union of the University of Helsinki. The investment takes place as ResQ Club enters into the Swedish market, where the company from today is operational in Stockholm, Göteborg, and Malmö. Alexander Lidgren, CEO of Cleantech Invest, joins the Board of Directors of ResQ Club in connection with the investment.
The ResQ Club service enables consumers to purchase surplus food portions from restaurants and cafés. The prices of ‘resQd’ portions are typically at a 40-70% discount. The service enables restaurants to gain additional revenue from otherwise wasted food, attract new customers, and be forerunners in the fight against food waste.
ResQ Club’s team has already been able to create a popular service and start international growth and with the investment will be able to grow and expand even faster into international markets.
Tuure Parkkinen, CEO of ResQ Club: “We are extremely happy to have attracted this group of investors. Cleantech Invest shares our environmental values and has a good international network that they have already put to use for us. In less than four months after the public launch of our service, we already have over 17 000 registered users and thousands of food portions ‘resQd’ every week. We are eager to see what the response will be in Sweden. These are exciting times!”
Alexander Lidgren, CEO of Cleantech Invest: “ResQ Club has quickly established a service which is a great deal for everyone – restaurants, customers and the environment. The food serving’s surplus is some 10-25% in restaurants so this is clearly an untapped potential for resource efficiency. Being a former café owner and chef myself, I have carried lots of perfectly good food to the waste bin. I am keen to see ResQ Club grow and I am keen to start using the app also in Sweden!“
A recent study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research showed that 30% to 40% of food produced around the world is never eaten, due to being spoiled after harvest, in transportation, or thrown away by retailers or consumers. This wasted food, whilst being a tragedy in a world where billions of people are starving every single day, is a significant creator of greenhouse gas emissions (estimated at 3.3 gigatonnes of CO2equivalent). Food production also imposes a significant strain on local ecosystems and threatens biodiversity through the use of pesticides and fertilizers.
The EU has set a target to halve per capita food waste by 2030 at the retail and consumer level: http://ec.europa.eu/food/safety/food_waste/eu_actions/index_en.htm
The ResQ Club mobile app is available on iPhone and Android, and the service can also be used with any device with a web browser at: https://resq-club.com/app. It was launched publicly on January 28th.
Currently, the service has:
- over 17 000 registered users,
- over 150 active provider partners (restaurants, bakeries, cafes and hotels)
- over 300 portions resQd daily.
Share swap info
Cleantech Invest will issue in total 41,268 new class A shares for subscription at EUR 1.26 per share. These shares represent 0.2% of Cleantech Invest. The shares are exchanged for a total of 260 class B shares in Resq Club owned by two current shareholders. These shares represent 2.2% of Resq Club.
Contact information
Alexander Lidgren, Managing Director of Cleantech Invest Plc. Tel. 46 73 660 1007, alexander.lidgren@cleantechinvest.com
Tuure Parkkinen, CEO, ResQ Club. Tel. +358 50 531 8115, tuure@resq-club.com
Access Partners Oy, Certified Advisor. Tel. 358 9 682 9500
Cleantech Invest in brief
Cleantech Invest is a Nordic accelerator with investments in growth companies that solve global challenges. The portfolio companies are active in energy- and resource efficiency as well as decentralized renewable energy and are based in Finland, Sweden and Germany. The company management consists of company builders and investors who have been active within the cleantech space for over a decade.The company is listed on First North Finland under the ticker: CLEAN. www.cleantechinvest.com