Five of the world’s leading grocery retailers, including the Shoprite Group, have established a pioneering collaborative venture capital (VC) fund, W23 Global, which seeks to invest in innovative start-ups and scale-ups that deploy technology to enhance customer experience, transform the grocery retail chain, and address the sector’s sustainability challenges.
Each of the retailers i.e., the Shoprite Group, Ahold Delhaize, Tesco, the Woolworths Group, and Empire Company Limited, are an equal funder and partner in W23 Global, while their CEOs will sit on the investment committee.
“W23 Global is a pioneering international VC fund with a uniquely powerful proposition for both our investors and portfolio companies,” says W23 Global CEO and CIO, Ingrid Maes. “At a time when innovation is reshaping retail and value chains across the economy, we aim to offer our investors incomparable access to transformative innovation in grocery and sustainability across the globe.”
“W23 Global will also work with its investors to identify common unaddressed challenges and identify entrepreneurs best placed to innovate new solutions. Our ambition is to offer our portfolio companies faster pathways to global scale, without being exposed to a venture fund anchored by a single strategic investor. With five of the world’s leading grocery CEOs sitting on our investment committee and access to our broader ecosystem, our founders can test and develop their ideas quickly based on an accelerated understanding of retailers’ needs.”
W23 Global complements its partners’ continuing direct innovation and investment strategies. The fund’s portfolio companies will be free to contract with any customer, whether a W23 Global partner or otherwise, on whatever terms they decide.
“In South Africa we have very unique trading circumstances that are unlike anything our partners in this venture fund have ever faced or had to deal with on a daily basis. In a country with one of the highest levels of inequality in the world, as measured by the Gini coefficient, we at the Shoprite Group have to find more affordable solutions for our customers to sustain their livelihoods, every day. This is the driving force behind our need to innovate faster than most retailers and is why we entered this venture with our esteemed global counterparts. In doing so, the Group remains committed to being a responsible corporate citizen for our customers, employees, shareholders, and importantly, also the sustainability of our planet,” says Pieter Engelbrecht, Shoprite Group CEO.
