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Benson Hill moves food forward with Cloud Biology and the CropOS platform, a leading food innovation engine that combines data science and machine learning with biology and genetics. Benson Hill empowers innovators to unlock nature’s genetic diversity from plant to plate, with the purpose of creating healthier, great-tasting food and ingredient options that are both widely accessible and sustainable.

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Nearly thirty years ago, the emergence of mainstream e-commerce, led by companies such as Amazon and eBay, revolutionized the way people buy and sell goods. Online ordering brought a newfound convenience to consumers, enabling the purchase of items without leaving the home. This required a complex supply chain to fulfill those online orders and deliver the goods, from a manufacturer to logistics providers, through several warehouses, and finally to the front door.

Since those early days of e-commerce, we have seen a steady progression towards faster deliveries and streamlined supply chains, driven by companies like Amazon, Instacart, DoorDash and our own Deliverr. But, as delivery times have decreased from weeks to days to hours, it begs the question: what does the end-state of e-commerce delivery look like? How fast can I get what I want?

At Activant, we believe that the next generation of commerce will be built upon near instantaneous deliveries done in 15 minutes or less.

 That is why we are investing in JOKR, to help build the future of retail.

The global grocery market is a mostly offline $8+ trillion industry with e-grocery penetration in the low single digit percentages. Coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic, we have seen a strong increase in the number of consumers who have purchased groceries online; we expect the market to continue moving in that direction.

However, our existing retail infrastructure is not designed for high quality on-demand grocery delivery. Traditional grocery stores carry far more SKUs and require far more real estate than is necessary for delivery.More importantly, they lack the ability to pick, pack, and deliver groceries on their own.

As a result, online grocery options today rely on third party vendors to handle the logistics that traditional grocers cannot do themselves. But the third-party model is at best a patchwork solution for an underlying infrastructure problem. Among many other issues, third party e-grocery vendors suffer from a lack of insight into the inventory on the shelves. Consumer shopping in the physical store becomes “interference”, contributing to stockouts, product swaps, and an overall mediocre user experience.

The only structurally viable model for high quality on-demand grocery delivery is to own the full stack

, from the inventory to the distribution centers and the local dark hubs. Vertical integration allows the vendor to control and optimize every aspect of the service, from locations and hubs layouts, to procurement, pricing, and inventory management.

We believe that JOKR represents this end-state of commerce.

 They are rebuilding the grocery and retail industry from the ground up for today’s consumers and redefining how we buy the things we need – instant and personalized, without trading off user experience or affordability. This creates a superior customer experience and customers love it.

With 100 delivery hubs across the U.S., Latin America and Europe today, JOKR has already proven itself to be one of the fastest growing next generation instant delivery platforms. They are building global-scale infrastructure and sustainable supply chains while supporting products from local partners and communities.

Ralf Wenzel and his co-founders bring over a decade of experience scaling high growth global businesses, and they have assembled a world class management team at JOKR.

Here at Activant, we are thrilled to be partnering with Ralf and the entire JOKR team as they reinvent retail, in 15 minutes or less.

 financing to build a global instant grocery and retail delivery platform. We at Activant are excited to partner with JOKR alongside Tiger Global, GGV, Balderton, HV Capital, and others.

Why We Are Investing in Jokr

The End-State of Commerce

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Founders who aspire to build something bigger than themselves chose to partner with us at their most critical point.

Founded in 2015, Activant is a global investment firm with $1.5 B AUM that partners with high-growth founders and teams that are transforming commerce.

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Harish is providing the Amazon Prime fulfillment experience to everyone else through a combination of AI and an asset-light network of warehouses across the United States.

Alex is automating workflows for the world’s largest enterprises by using process mining to build the connective tissue for businesses.

Mayan is delivering Autonomous IT to the largest companies in the world through systems of intelligence.

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Soups is stopping financial crime in its tracks by building the first end-to-end platform for fraud, risk, and compliance.

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Activant is a research-led global investment firm that partners with high-growth companies.

We partner with founders who have won their initial battles and are ready for the next challenge.

We typically invest when two things come together. First, the company has the potential to achieve escape velocity and transform an entire industry. Second, we believe the founders can lead the company through hyper growth, and our support can significantly increase the probability of this success. 

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