London, UK – weekly.shop (https://www.weekly.shop/), the innovative grocery startup eliminating throwaway packaging from grocery shopping, has secured investment from the Low Carbon Innovation Fund (LCIF2) and Turquoise Capital, bringing its total funding to date to over £350,000.
The investment comes alongside angels, including key early and senior individuals from the likes of graze.com, Harry’s and Hello Fresh. weekly.shop is also a current recipient of a UK Research and Innovation grant to fight plastic waste.
LCIF2 supports innovative businesses dedicated to reducing carbon emissions and minimising their environmental impact. Turquoise, the fund manager for LCIF2, shares this commitment to a greener future, specialising in sustainability-focused ventures. On this occasion, it has further invested alongside LCIF2.
weekly.shop’s service is the first of its kind in the UK and brings consumers a frictionless way to buy zero waste groceries. It’s a much-needed solution – according to Greenpeace almost 40% of all plastic packaging waste comes from grocery shopping (a whopping 886,000 tonnes – 97bn items per year 1 ), and only 12% of it is ever recycled 2 .
The weekly.shop pilot is about to launch in London and this investment will help drive this key development phase as the first customers try the service (the waiting list already has over 750 eager shoppers on it 3 ).
A B-Corp Pending 4 , the startup is the brainchild of cofounders Paul Cooke and Mark Holland, who met when both were in the founding team at successful pet food startup, tails.com (acquired by Nestle in 2018). As parents of young children, they were motivated to help build a better future for their (and everybody else’s) kids.
“We’re delighted that such experienced and aligned investors have shown belief and conviction in our vision for a new kind of grocery shopping. This investment from LCIF2 and Turquoise Capital will help us bring that vision to life,” said Cooke.
Holland added: “We’re working to bring about system change and to have large scale impact, having investors who also want to have this kind of impact is very important to us.”
Kevin Murphy, Director at Turquoise, commented: “weekly.shop provides a service which enables customers to buy and consume their weekly shop with no packaging waste. We are delighted to make this investment as it fits very well in the investment strategy of LCIF2 into technologies and services helping to reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs) as there are huge savings to be made by avoiding throwaway packaging on food deliveries.”
Notes to editor
About weekly.shop
weekly (https://www.weekly.shop/) is a revolutionary grocery retailer that provides all of its products in reusable containers. Based in London, the company was founded in 2022 by Paul Cooke and Mark Holland, former Co-founders at tails.com who also played key early roles at successful startups graze.com, LoveFilm and Zoopla. They are backed by angel investors, including former early and senior team members from Harry’s, graze.com and Hello Fresh and are a ReLondon Circular Community Member.
About LCIF2 and Turquoise
LCIF2 is managed by Turquoise and is a venture capital fund investing in eligible small to medium sized businesses based in England, particularly the areas covered by its local government backers, developing products and services which will have a beneficial environmental impact.
LCIF2 is funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), following a successful bid by Norfolk County Council and the University of East Anglia. ERDF is an investment programme part financed by the European Union. LCIF2 is part of the UK government’s portfolio of business support products.
LCIF2 has received £10.9m (for co-investment alongside private monies) from the European Regional Development Fund as part of the European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme 2014-2020. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is the Managing Authority for this funding. Established by the European Union, the ERDF helps local areas stimulate their economic development by investing in projects which will support innovation, businesses, create jobs and local community regenerations.
For more information visit www.gov.uk/european-growth-funding, www.lcif.vc and www.turquoise.eu.
About UK Research and Innovation
Big challenges demand big thinkers – those who can unlock the answers and further our understanding of the important issues of our time. Our work encompasses everything from the physical, biological and social sciences, to innovation, engineering, medicine, the environment and the cultural impact of the arts and humanities. In all of these areas, our role is to bring together the people who can innovate and change the world for the better. We work with the government to invest over £8 billion a year in research and innovation by partnering with academia and industry to make the impossible, possible. Through the UK’s nine leading academic and industrial funding councils, we create knowledge with impact. Please visit https://www.ukri.org/ to find out more.
Sources:
- 886,021 tonnes put on the market by supermarkets in 2019
(https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Checking-Out-on-Plastics-III-FINAL.pdf) / ~2,5m tonnes of plastic packaging waste in 2019 (https://www.statista.com/statistics/995590/plastic-packaging-waste-generated-uk/). - https://www.greenpeace.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Final-Big-Plastic-Count-Results-Report-V2.pdf
- Waiting list = 781 as of 26/09/23
- B-Corp Pending is the status given to new companies too young to complete a full B-Corp assessment. Taking this step signals to current and future investors that a company measures and manages its social and environmental performance with the best tools available. Find out more at: https://www.bcorporation.net/en-us/programs-and-tools/pending-b-corps/.
For more information:
Contact: Paul Cooke
Email: press@weekly.shop
Logos and images: weekly.shop press pack.