Zero Pitch
Our earth is facing a crisis. The temperature of the planet is rising while our oceans are quickly becoming pits of plastic waste. 8 million tons (the weight of ~90 aircraft carriers) of plastic end up in oceans every year while 40 million tons of food packaging end up in landfills every year. If this does not stop, earth and its wildlife are doomed. A company tackling this issue must scale in over the next 7-10 years.
Believe it or not, plastic waste is a recent problem. Most of what humans consumed in the past came packaged in paper, wood or metal.
What if all of our groceries came in reusable containers, thus drastically decreasing our reliance on harmful plastics? Is there a modern way of getting back to the milkman?
Yes there is.
Enter Zero.
Zero (zerogrocery.com), the first online, plastic-free online grocery retailer. We deliver groceries (fresh produce, your favorite brands, personal care products, and more) in glass jars and silicone bags. You eat, cook, bathe, and brush with the contents of these containers and simply leave them outside on your next delivery day. The containers are cleaned, refilled and reused by the Zero team in a fully closed-loop supply chain
The problem
- Big-name brands need to exist in a new world order, where more than 30% of all groceries are set to be sold online
- Gen Z, the biggest consumer population in human history, demand clean-living
- Big-brands today have little or no direct link to this consumer segment (enter DTC brands) and are losing share of basket
- Coca-Cola announced its World Without Waste initiative with the goal to achieve 100% recycled packaging using 50% recycled materials, and by 2030 collect and recycle one bottle or can for every item sold. Unilever made a similar announcement, promising to cut its use of virgin plastics by 50%, and collecting and processing its plastic packaging
- Brands want to offset, reuse, reduce and be seen as conscious and responsible producers but have not found a way to maintain or increase margins by doing so. They need a partner
- Zero gives big brands tried-and-tested packaging (jars, silicone bags), the software to know what to pack and when, along with the platform to retail their goods on, the very first closed-loop sales platform for groceries
The solution
- Brands pack their goods into Zero jars, get it to us and we get it to you! Collect back the jar and ship it right back to them, clean and ready for a refill. Round-and-round-and-round
- Zero delivers in the Bay Area, will launch LA in mid-2021 and has 14x’d since Feb 2020. We have 700+ members
Business
- Launched Nov 2019, we went from $9k revenue in Feb 2020 to $115k in June 2020, currently $1.3M run-rate. July is set to be $140k+
- Zero is a membership model, members pay $25 pm + cost of groceries, which are 10–15% cheaper. This is made possible because we got rid of the single-use packaging
- Zero’s software connects all the dots by enabling manufacturers to use a simple dashboard to integrate into ERPs and start packing for Zero
- Zero is a two-sided marketplace. We do not hold inventory like a traditional online grocery store
- Our average member shops 3.25x a month and spends $86 per order. We are at 700+ members, up from 50 in February
- We have 18% gross margins this early on, already par for “online grocery”. However, we have huge opportunities to rise to 40%+ margins at scale. Our lean delivery system and decentralized warehousing make us a far more scalable business than existing options
- Grocery is a huge industry, but nobody has built tech that enables manufacturers to sell a sustainable version of their products to the mass market
Team
- CEO, Zuleyka Strasner, Felicis Ventures, working closely with Aydin Senkut and Investment team on deal flow, organization, founder support, beta testing and internal process automation. Formerly University of Oxford, Labour Party UK
- Shawn Haner, Head of Ops (Instacart 6+ years), Davis Rao, Head of BD (Cathay Innovation, Endeavor), Yalonda Clark (Instacart), Jernej Strasner (Facebook, Apple)
- 7 FTE
Raise
- Seed round is moving quickly, please ask about previously raised capital and valuation
- Current investors include Precursor Ventures, Incite.org, Cleo Capital, Chingona Capital
Zuleyka Strasner // zuleyka@zerogrocery.com
Ref:
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazards/marinedebris/plastics-in-the-ocean.html
https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-08/documents/reducing_wasted_food_pkg_tool.pdf
