€1.5m · Other round · Deeptech · Cascina, Italy
Ganiga, an Italian company using computer vision and robotics to measure waste, has raised €1.5m in equity financing led by contract-catering operator Vivenda, with participation from London-based NextSTEP and three angel investors. Tech.eu reports that the funding will support product development, commercial hiring and expansion of the company's HooolyFood platform.
The €1.5m equity round is the new financing event. A separate €1m award through Italy's Smart&Start programme brings the combined resources disclosed alongside the announcement to €2.5m, according to Teleborsa reporting carried by Repubblica.
Turning plate waste into operating data
Ganiga began with robotic bins that recognise and sort waste. The company says it has sold more than 300 devices for airports, shopping centres and large businesses across Italy, Japan, Australia and other European markets. It used the resulting field data to develop HooolyFood, a camera-based system that identifies discarded food above a waste container without requiring staff to weigh each item. The dashboard is designed to show catering teams which dishes are being discarded, estimate their cost and reveal patterns that can inform purchasing, menu planning and service.
That workflow matters because food waste is usually visible only after the cost has already been incurred. Turning leftovers into item-level data gives a caterer a feedback loop between the dining room and procurement. Ganiga says HooolyFood was developed in under a year and is already used in operations serving more than 30,000 meals a day. The next commercial test is whether those deployments translate into recurring software and hardware revenue across many sites, rather than remaining bespoke projects.
Vivenda's role adds an operating channel as well as capital. The investor is reported to serve more than 50 million meals a year, giving Ganiga access to a large contract-catering environment in which to refine deployment, prove savings and expand site by site. That alignment can shorten the distance between product development and customer use, but it also creates a clear execution dependency: Ganiga must turn success with its strategic backer into a repeatable sales case for other caterers, hotels and event operators.
Regulation raises the value of measurement
The timing is useful. The European Commission says the amended Waste Framework Directive requires member states to reduce food waste by 30% per person across retail and consumption, including restaurants and food services, by 2030. That is a national target rather than a direct product mandate, but it increases the value of reliable measurement for operators that need to show where waste occurs and whether interventions work. Ganiga plans to use the round to expand its technical and commercial teams, industrialise HooolyFood and its data platform, and grow recurring revenue before moving further into hospitality and other food-service settings.
