Afresh, which recently extended its artificial intelligence platform for grocery from fresh produce to the entire store, has raised $34 million in new funding to accelerate its expansion, according to a release. The round was co-led by Just Climate, the specialist climate-led investment business set up by Generation Investment Management, and HighSage Ventures, with participation from all major investors.
The San Francisco-based company says it has managed nearly 8 billion fresh food ordering decisions across its retail partners in the last 12 months, representing 60% growth from 2024. And its AI platform has scaled to over 12,500 departments with 70% year-over-year revenue growth in 2025.
The new funding will fuel continued growth, expansion into new product areas to support in-store production and a broader reach to more grocers across the country, says Afresh.
Every day, billions of decisions determine how food moves through the grocery supply chain: what to order, how much to stock, and what to produce. In a $10 trillion global industry built on perishable inventory and razor-thin margins, those decisions are made under constant pressure, often across fragmented systems, the company says.
Afresh says its AI platform brings real-time intelligence to grocery decision-making from store-level ordering to distribution center buying. Built first for fresh, Afresh developed AI designed for short shelf life, unpredictable demand and imperfect data. That foundation now extends across the full grocery enterprise, including center store, frozen and general merchandise.
“We’ve spent nearly a decade building AI to solve the complexity of grocery, and we’re now seeing that approach scale across the industry,” says Matt Schwartz, CEO and co-founder of Afresh. “The decisions AI makes in grocery aren’t about optimizing pixels on a screen; they’re about physical products with shelf lives measured in days, moving through a supply chain that feeds billions of people. Our platform orchestrates those decisions at scale, so buyers, store teams and merchandisers can spend less time on routine execution and more time on the strategy and judgment that drive outcomes.”
Afresh is live in more than 12,500 departments across 40 states, partnering with grocery retailers, including Albertsons Cos., Meijer and Wakefern. Its platform supports merchandising, store operations and supply chain teams in improving in-stock rates, reducing waste and strengthening margins, enabling retailers to achieve measurable results, including up to a 25% reduction in shrink, a 3% sales lift and a 7% improvement in inventory turns, the company says.
This new capital will accelerate that expansion, supporting broader deployment across retail partners and continued investment in next-generation AI.
An Industry at Inflection
The funding comes at a moment of accelerating adoption, as grocery retailers move from isolated pilots to scaled AI deployment across stores, categories and supply chains.
Afresh says more than 60% of the company’s entire lifetime order volume has occurred in the last 12 months, as retailers expand adoption across stores, categories and workflows. Over the same period, Afresh has sustained 70% year-over-year revenue growth while expanding from fresh replenishment into a platform spanning six enterprise-grade solutions — covering full-store ordering, production planning, distribution center buying and supply chain optimization.
“HighSage has been invested in Afresh for many years, and our conviction has only grown,” says Owen Wurzbacher, chief investment officer at High Sage Ventures. “Afresh has an exceptional team, a happy and rapidly growing list of customers and a differentiated platform. Their best days lie ahead. This was an easy moment to grow our investment.”
Better Decisions, Less Waste, Lower Emissions
In grocery, food waste is a business problem before anything else. An estimated 30% to 40% of food is wasted across the broader food system, driving lost sales, margin erosion and excess inventory, says Afresh. The decisions retailers make about what to order and stock ripple upstream, determining what gets grown, processed and transported across the entire food system. Afresh says getting those decisions right is one of the highest-leverage interventions available to reduce waste and emissions at scale.
“Food waste is one of the most critical and overlooked drivers of emissions in the food system,” says Libby Spalding, director at Generation Investment Management. “Afresh’s AI platform strengthens the demand signal at the retail and distribution center levels, which have outsized upstream consequences. The results mean stronger margins for retailers and lower emissions for the system.”
Afresh says it has helped prevent more than 200 million pounds of food waste to date. The company says it continues to advance a clear premise: Better decisions drive better outcomes — for retailers, consumers and the global food system.
Your next read: Beyond the Perimeter: Afresh CEO on Scaling Produce-Native AI to the Entire Retail Enterprise
