Boston, MA – In a significant move highlighting the growing urgency to combat food waste, Spoiler Alert, a Boston-based tech startup, has announced the successful closure of a $2.5 million seed funding round. This investment is spearheaded by Acre Venture Partners, a venture capital firm focused on building a sustainable and equitable food system. The funding will fuel Spoiler Alert’s mission to expand its technology platform, grow its team, and broaden its geographic reach, ultimately creating a nationwide secondary market for surplus food inventory.
Spoiler Alert’s innovative platform addresses a critical issue: the staggering amount of food wasted annually in the United States. Co-founder and CEO Ricky Ashenfelter points out that “upwards of 40 percent of the nation’s food supply is wasted every year.” This not only results in significant financial losses for businesses but also exacerbates food insecurity and negatively impacts the environment. By connecting businesses with unsold inventory to networks of non-profits and discount buyers in real-time, Spoiler Alert aims to transform food waste into an opportunity for increased profitability and enhanced social impact. This approach fosters collaboration across the food supply chain, linking food manufacturers, distributors, retailers, and farms with the extensive network of 50,000 nonprofits dedicated to alleviating food insecurity across America.
Founded in June 2015 by MIT Sloan School of Management alumni Ricky Ashenfelter and Emily Malina, alongside CTO Marty Sirkin, Spoiler Alert’s technology offers a comprehensive solution for managing unsold and surplus food, as well as organic waste. The company launched its free Marketplace in November 2015, providing an online platform and communication tools to streamline food donations and discounted sales between businesses and nonprofits. This initiative has already seen substantial traction, with over 200 organizations in New England joining the platform and a consistent 15 percent month-over-month user growth rate since its inception.
Building on the success of its Marketplace, Spoiler Alert introduced its Enterprise offering earlier this year. This subscription-based service is designed to help businesses leverage the enhanced tax deductions available for food donations. The Enterprise platform offers item-level traceability and advanced reporting dashboards, providing businesses with deeper insights into their waste streams, potential tax benefits, and community impact.
A notable partnership for Spoiler Alert is with Sysco Corporation, a global leader in foodservice distribution based in Houston. Sysco is deploying Spoiler Alert’s Enterprise system to manage its excess, wholesome food. Catherine Kayser, Sysco’s Vice President of Corporate Social Responsibility, emphasized the alignment of this partnership with Sysco’s broader sustainability goals. “Spoiler Alert allows us to better manage our relationships with our local nonprofit partners, serve the communities where we work and live, as well as to streamline the capture of key financial, environmental, and social metrics from our food recovery and waste diversion efforts,” Kayser stated.
Acre Venture Partners’ decision to lead this seed round underscores the firm’s conviction in Spoiler Alert’s vision and potential. Sam Kass, representing Acre Venture Partners and a former White House Senior Policy Advisor for Nutrition Policy, articulated the firm’s perspective, stating, “Acre Venture Partners sees food waste as a significant inefficiency and a major market opportunity that can have a tremendous impact on the food system.” Kass further emphasized the strength of the Spoiler Alert team and Acre Venture Partners’ enthusiasm to “leverage our industry experience and support them with their growth.” Acre Venture Partners brings significant expertise in the food and agriculture sectors, making them an ideal partner to help Spoiler Alert navigate the complexities of the food industry and scale its operations effectively.
The significance of addressing food waste is further highlighted by ReFED, a multi-stakeholder initiative, which estimates that food waste represents a staggering $218 billion in annual financial losses for U.S. businesses, farms, and consumers. Jesse Fink, Chairman of ReFED Steering Committee, Founding COO of Priceline.com, and Trustee of the Fink Family Foundation, an investor in Spoiler Alert, emphasized the critical role of technology in this space. “Technology is going to play a critical role in offering businesses the insights and outlets they need to minimize wasted food,” Fink stated. He expressed strong support for Spoiler Alert’s ambition to become the leading secondary market for under-utilized food products.
The newly secured funding will enable Spoiler Alert to aggressively pursue its growth objectives. Ashenfelter outlined the company’s plans to strengthen its team, expand its presence across the food manufacturing, wholesale distribution, and retail sectors, and extend the reach of its Marketplace offering into new geographic areas.
In addition to Acre Venture Partners and the Fink Family Foundation, other investors in this seed round include Valley Oak Investments, LaunchCapital, Fresh Source Capital, and FTW Ventures, demonstrating broad investor confidence in Spoiler Alert’s mission and business model.
About Spoiler Alert
Spoiler Alert is a Boston-based technology company committed to revolutionizing unsold food inventory management. Through its collaborative online platform and value-added services, Spoiler Alert empowers food manufacturers, distributors, retailers, farms, and nonprofits to unlock value from surplus food and organic waste. The platform facilitates food donations, discounted sales, and organics brokering, providing essential accounting and reporting systems to capture tax benefits and document critical financial, environmental, and social metrics. Spoiler Alert’s innovative approach is bringing 21st-century connectivity to the food industry, driving sustainable economic, environmental, and social value for its customers. The company is a proud alumnus of the 2016 Techstars Boston cohort and a 2015 MassChallenge winner.
