Start-up FruitBull receives 285,000 euro from ESADE BAN

FruitBull, one of Spain’s most dynamic start-ups, has received €285,000 from 12 business angels in its first round of financing through ESADE BAN.

FruitBull’s mission is to make the fruit and vegetable market more transparent. The company aims to benefit both the industry and consumers by parameterising fresh products, reducing the amount of products that are thrown away, and contributing to the growth of the fruit and vegetable market.

“We’re very pleased with how FruitBull’s round of financing has gone, and especially with ESADE BAN’s involvement in it,” commented Fernando Zallo, Director of ESADE BAN. “The addition of 12 investors from the ESADE BAN investors’ network, who together will hold 18% of FruitBull’s capital – alongside Wayra, BStartup (Banco de Sabadell) and the other entrepreneurs – is a good example of how business angels can coordinate their actions, and also of smart money.” He added: “Three of the ESADE BAN investors will sit on the company’s board of directors, where they will represent the other investors from the network and contribute value to the company in various areas of knowledge and business experience. ESADE BAN is also interested in collaborating with FruitBull on the development of new initiatives that could arise from the start-up’s innovative activity.”

FruitBull’s main clients include Carrefour, Asprocan and Pink Lady. The company has recently participated in various fairs, including Free Attraction and WOP Dubai, one of the Middle East’s largest events for the fruit and vegetable industry.

Fluctuating prices

“The idea occurred to me while I was working at a fruit multinational at Mercamadrid,” commented Santiago Álvarez, CEO of FruitBull. “I spent two hours a day making phone calls to find out how the fruit market worked. After work, I would stop by three or four supermarkets to look at prices. In reality, I couldn’t get an idea of what the market was like because there were no tools for measuring the fluctuations in fruit prices.” He added: “It’s a medieval market. Prices are based on harvests from previous years, and all the agents are in the dark.”

The trend exemplified by FruitBull has become increasingly widespread among consumers – and some stores – because it makes it possible to plan purchases and to optimise the time and space dedicated to storage and transport. Gerard Costa, Associate Professor in the Department of Marketing at ESADE, described the price fluctuations for fresh products at some supermarkets as a “dynamic pricing” strategy, in the sense that prices may change over the course of a given day. “With this strategy, the store manager is able to lower the price of certain fresh products at any time during the day, according to commercial and product-management criteria,” he explained.