Coca-Cola HBC partners with Rainmaking

24 March 2023, Copenhagen, DK – Coca-Cola HBC, one of the world’s leading beverage companies, has partnered with Rainmaking Innovation, global corporate innovation and venture development firm, to launch the €100K Coca-Cola HBC HORECA Challenge.

The challenge is looking for startups revolutionizing the Hotel, Restaurant and Cafe (HORECA) industry and marks the continuation of the partnership between the two companies. This follows the success of last year’s €100K Coca-Cola HBC Sustainability Challenge, which focused on sustainable packaging and waste collection startups.

This year’s challenge seeks solutions within six areas of the HORECA industry: internet-first restaurants and dark kitchens, restaurant tech hardware, restaurant in-store software, food waste management solutions, feedback management and consumer engagement solutions, and food discovery and review platforms.

The challenge offers startups a unique opportunity to pitch their concept to the executive leadership team of Coca-Cola HBC, with the chance to win a prize of 100,000 Euros and potentially collaborate with Coca-Cola HBC in the future. Startups can apply through cchbc-challenge.rainmaking.io until May 5th, 2023 for a chance to have their solution considered.

“As the leading 24/7 beverage partner, we continually explore new ways to invest in our future – and the €100K start-up challenge allows us to do just that,” said Zoran Bogdanovic, CEO of Coca-Cola HBC. “This year, we are calling on startups to bring forward the next big idea that will transform the hotel, restaurant and cafe channel. We seek the solutions that will strengthen and premiumise our offering of unmatched products, services, and our customer-centric approach. The winning startup will demonstrate creativity, business acumen, and a passion for driving change. In addition to investment, we will also support and nurture the ideas and partnerships to help them reach full potential.”

Alex Farcet, Partner at Rainmaking, adds that “we are excited to extend our partnership with Coca-Cola HBC with the launch of the €100K Coca-Cola HBC HORECA Challenge. Through this challenge, we will play an active role in driving positive impact and fostering innovation in the HORECA industry. This challenge is a testament to our shared belief in the power of innovation to drive positive change. We look forward to building on our learnings from last year and ensuring ever-improving results.”

For more information and to apply to the €100K Coca-Cola HORECA Challenge, visit cchbc-challenge.rainmaking.io

About Coca-Cola HBC

Coca-Cola HBC is a growth-focused consumer packaged goods business and strategic bottling partner of The Coca-Cola Company. It creates value for stakeholders by supporting the socio-economic development of the communities in which it operates, and believes in building a more positive environmental impact for future growth. Together, with its customers, Coca-Cola HBC serves 715 million consumers across a broad geographic footprint of 29 countries on three continents. Its portfolio is one of the strongest, broadest and most flexible in the beverage industry, offering consumer-leading beverage brands in the sparkling, juice, water, sport, energy, plant-based, ready-to-drink tea, coffee, adult sparkling and premium spirits categories.

Coca-Cola HBC fosters an open and inclusive work environment amongst its 33,000 employees and we are ranked among the top sustainability performers in ESG benchmarks such as the Dow Jones Sustainability Indices, CDP, MSCI ESG and FTSE4Good.

Through its Ventures arm, Coca-Cola HBC partners with disruptive start-ups in its geographical footprint and beyond and seeks ideas that address the challenges it strives to overcome. The start-up solutions must be relevant to its industry and aligned with its focus areas of Last Mile (B2B, direct to consumer, logistics, customer connections), vending and touchless technology; coffee technology and equipment; and sustainable packaging and climate change. Coca-Cola HBC Ventures invests in the potential of these start-ups and offers a testing ground for ideas, validating and building credibility for their concepts.

About Rainmaking

Rainmaking is a global cooperative of entrepreneurs who run startups and innovation programs in more than 40 countries. With a global team of over 200 entrepreneurs, strategists, product experts, developers, designers, and investors, their network provides them with first-hand access to innovative startups and early-stage companies in every major startup ecosystem worldwide. Rainmaking has founded 25 companies based on their own ideas and seed funded them themselves, followed up with over 20m EUR from external investors.

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If you want to learn more about the ways a partnership with Rainmaking could help you innovate your business, reach out to us here.