Food tech startup The Oater secures millions in pre-seed funding

The capital will be used to finance the market launch and series production of its sustainable oat drink machines, which produce plant-based milk alternatives for the food service industry on site.

Cologne - The Oater, a Cologne-based food tech start-up, has successfully completed a seven-figure pre-seed financing round. The capital injection comes from business angels from the food and tech industry, with the main investor being Rüdiger Koppelmann. Koppelmann brings extensive industry knowledge as former Managing Director of SodaStream in France and Germany/Austria. In addition to the financing round, The Oater was able to raise six-figure funding, including the WomenTech EU grant of €75,000, which supports female founders in the tech sector. The start-up plans to use the fresh capital to enter the market and start series production of its oat drink machines.

We need to move away from single-use packaging and centralized production with long transport routes and towards plant-based, sustainable and fresh alternatives, produced locally.

Sarah Nesti, Co-Founder & CEO The Oater

The Oater was launched in 2021 by founders Sarah and Lisa Nesti, Henrik Burger and Benjamin Auer. Their vision is to produce plant-based milk alternatives that are more sustainable, fresher and easier to experience. The start-up develops special equipment for the food service industry that can be used to produce milk alternatives such as oat drinks on site. This approach enables freshness and real sustainability. The Oater's business model is referred to as "Oat Drink as a Service", as the start-up not only supplies its gastronomic customers with the oat drink machine, but also provides the necessary ingredients for the production of barista oat drink within the machine on a subscription basis.

With its B2B focus on the food service industry, The Oater is responding to the prevailing, strong demand for more freshness, regionality and less packaging waste in this sector.

Rüdiger Koppelmann, Lead Investor & Managing Director SodaStream

The category of milk substitutes with an oat drink share of over 50% (Gfk 2022) is booming in Europe and already achieved sales of USD 2.6 billion in 2022 with expected annual growth of 15% until 2027 (Statista 2023). However, 90% of oat drink consists of water, which is transported across Europe in composite cartons. For this reason, mechanical engineer and visionary Sarah Nesti (CEO) was looking for a more sustainable product solution with a convincing foam and taste. Together with her co-founders, she developed the concept of a compact automated oat drink machine.

The Oater considers itself an impact start-up and has set itself the goal of saving 1 billion kilograms of CO2 by 2030. Independent research shows that The Oater already produces 57% less CO2 equivalent compared to conventional oat drink and 93% less than cow's milk. The founding team originally started with two engineers in the Aachen start-up ecosystem around RWTH Aachen University and has been based in Cologne since 2022.

The pilot phase for the Barista oat drink will begin in August 2023 in selected restaurants in Cologne and Berlin. The tests in sensory panels and with baristas have already been extremely positive and generated enthusiasm. The Oater will soon start its first series production in Germany, and the dedicated founding team is looking forward to the upcoming commercial launch.