16 Innovative Food Tech Startups to Watch in 2023

Every year, new startups pull to the forefront of their industry through exciting innovation and industry-disrupting business models. We’ve rounded up the top food tech startups of 2023 that startup-lovers, investors, and aspiring entrepreneurs should follow. 

Disclaimer: With so many exciting startups launching and growing worldwide, we aren’t able to cover them all. Furthermore, the startups that are listed below are not officially ranked and are listed in no particular order.

• Location: New York, New York
• Funding: Series A, $72.1 Million

Lunchbox is a startup that built a modern ordering system that allows restaurants to grow their revenues and add features such as loyalty programs, third-party order aggregation, web orders, and a native app to make the process as simple as possible. If a brick-and-mortar restaurant wants to grow its business, Lunchbox provides all of the tools they need to hit the ground running. 

• Location: New York, New York
• Funding: Series Unknown, $625.9 Million

Bowery Farming is a food tech startup that’s developing new automation technology for growing and monitoring plants. Their unique growth monitoring solutions include vision systems, sensors, and automated elements to keep track of plant and crop health from seed to harvest. To get world-changing flavors and delicious food, plants must be grown in precise, optimal conditions; Bowery Farming is making this a reality and turning growing into a precise science. 

• Location: Atlanta, Georgia
• Funding: Series A, $124 Million

Sunday is working to improve how people pay in restaurants, making the process faster, quicker, and more efficient for staff and customers alike. By using their app and implementing their technology into a restaurant, wait staff can turn tables quicker, get more tips, increase average customer spending, and save time and money. 

• Location: Bengaluru, India
• Funding: Series C, $32.4 Million

FreshMenu is a food delivery service that strives to provide tasty, fresh, and high-quality cuisines to customers. Since they’re based in India, they offer delivery to Bengaluru, Mumbai, New Delhi, and Gurgaon, and their meal selections include sandwiches, burgers, bowls, biryanis, thalis, pasta, steaks, wraps, and more. 

• Location: Gurgaon, India
• Funding: Debt Financing, $1 Billion

Blinkit is a food-tech startup that created a low-price online supermarket in India that gives customers grocery delivery services on demand. When customers want fruits and vegetables, dairy and eggs, snacks, bakery goods and biscuits, breakfast foods, tea, coffee, cold drinks, chicken, meat, fish, and any other grocery stores items, they can order from Blinkit and get their groceries delivered to them without a hassle. 

• Location: Manhattan Beach, California
• Funding: Series G, $122 Million

Beyond Meat is a food tech and food processing company specializing in creating plant-based meat that tastes just like the real thing. Using their own blend of unique ingredients and flavors, they are scientifically creating meats that taste great without giving away the fact that they’re entirely plant-based. Their products currently range from burgers, sausages, ground meat, meatballs, chicken, and jerky. 

• Location: Los Angeles, California
• Funding: Unknown

Phoode is a network, marketplace, and search engine for food creatives and clients that’s focused on creating a platform where users can showcase, source, get inspiration and connect with food creative talent. Anyone in the food industry is able to utilize their platform in order to get access to branding, advertising, design, product and recipe development, and more.

• Location: San Francisco, California
• Funding: Series B, $95.6 Million

Snackpass is a food-tech startup that has built a social commerce platform dedicated to mobile order pickup from local restaurants. They’re leveling up the experience of going out to eat with friends and creating an attractive restaurant ordering experience that’s dynamic and includes shared rewards, gifts, and even a social activity feed. 

• Location: Chicago, Illinois
• Funding: Seed, $5.3 Million

Quicklly is an online marketplace that allows customers to browse and purchase a wide range of Indian cuisines and groceries with just the click of a button. If you want to satisfy your cravings for Indian food and browse authentic Indian groceries on a whim, Quicklly is making that happen for Indian food lovers everywhere. If you want warm Indian meals delivered to your door, they also offer subscription packages for cooked Indian food delivery. 

• Location: Pennsauken, New Jersey
• Funding: Series C, $526.5 Million

Misfits Market is a startup that developed an organically sourced produce and grocery subscription box. When you sign up with Misfits Market, you can skip the grocery store and choose from a wide variety of meat, seafood, produce, dairy, and bakery items weekly to have delivered. Compared to grocery store prices, some items on Misfits Market can save subscribers up to 40% and give them peace of mind that they’re purchasing organic produce and high-quality grocery products.

• Location: Singapore
• Funding: Series A, $39.4 Million

TurtleTree is a food tech startup based in Singapore that’s creating a new generation of sustainable foods. They use modern cell-based technology to develop kinder, healthier foods that both taste great and are good for you at the same time. Employing a world-class team, TurtleTree is on track to grow rapidly and use its team member’s knowledge, expertise, and research to find better ways for the world to feed itself. 

• Location: New York, New York
• Funding: Series C, $133.1 Million

Goldbelly is building an online delivery platform for artisans and specialty food makers. Some of their most popular product categories include chef meal kits, care packages, seafood, ice cream, BBQ, cakes, and iconic sandwiches. If you’re craving some unique artisan food or just want to see what’s out there, browsing the Goldbelly marketplace will allow you to discover some incredibly tasty food options. 

• Location: London, United Kingdom
• Funding: Grant, £16.4 Million

Notpla is a sustainable packaging startup company that’s working to develop material derived exclusively from plants and seaweed instead of plastic. Using their revolutionary material, packaging can biodegrade in just weeks through natural processes and reduce the amount of pollution in our oceans and various plant and animal ecosystems around the world. 

• Location: Austin, Texas
• Funding: Pre-Seed, $200,000

Elite Sweets is a food-tech startup company that’s working to redefine sweets with “The Elite Donut.” Every single one of the donuts they bake has low sugar content, is gluten-free, keto-friendly, and packed with protein. Donuts don’t have to be an unhealthy snack or dessert anymore – by eating these donuts, you’ll never feel guilty about consuming a donut again!

• Location: Cupertino, California
• Funding: Series A, $25 Million

Local Kitchens is a startup that’s working to bring some of the best local restaurants in the Bay Area together under one roof through the creation of a “micro food hall.” They allow customers to order and have easy pickup and delivery in one central location. Best of all, if you want to order from several different local restaurants at one time, it can be done on one single check making it great for group orders or families. 

• Location: Berlin, Germany
• Funding: Series B, $1 Billion

Flink is an online food tech startup company that’s building a platform for quick, 10-minute grocery deliveries. Whether you want fresh fruits or vegetables, groceries, or organic foods of your choice, you’ll be able to get all of the food you need delivered in minutes. Flink Food currently offers delivery services in Germany, France, Austria, and The Netherlands.

Recommended: Check out our full list of the top startups to watch!

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