BDC Capital and Framework Venture Partners led the round.
Québec City-based Brizo Data has secured over $12 million CAD for its Series A round as it looks to “become the source of truth on the foodservice and hospitality industries.”
The round was co-led by Framework Venture Partners and BDC Capital’s Industrial Innovation Venture Fund, the latter of which includes food tech as one of its principal investment areas.
“What we understood is that there’s so much information out there that’s available.”
Founded in 2020, Brizo has built a data platform that provides foodservice and hospitality organizations with insights to help inform their sales processes.
The startup claims its data comes from more than one million foodservice establishments across Canada and the United States.
Speaking with BetaKit last year, Trevor Shimizu, co-founder and CRO, noted that Brizo was created to help fill a gap in the industry. He argued that, historically, the process to get this type of data was very manual.
“What we understood is that there’s so much information out there that’s available beyond just the name and phone number of a restaurant that’s going to allow businesses to be more strategic in their reach out,” Shimizu added.
Brizo originally raised the majority of its Series A round last year, telling BetaKit in November that it was a mix of equity and debt. A spokesperson for the company said the full $12 million includes $2.5 million in debt, and $250,000 in grant financing, with the remainder being equity.
After recently holding the final close on the round at the end of March, Brizo has raised a total of around $13 million CAD since it was founded three years ago. Its first, $1.3 million CAD seed round was led by Branded Hospitality Ventures, which invests in food tech companies. Branded Hospitality Ventures re-invested as part of its Series A, alongside undisclosed angel investors from the tech and restaurant spaces. BetaKit has reached out to confirm the full list of investors.
“We have what we believe is a future Canadian champion, based in Québec,” Framework partner and CTO Jim Texier told BetaKit, arguing that his experience as the former CTO of Lightspeed emphasizes the need for a data play like Brizo in the food industry.
With files from Josh Scott.
Feature image courtesy Unsplash. Photo Benjamin Zanatta.
