Vala Capital is delighted to announce its recent investment in Mondra, a UK start-up focused on creating source-to-shelf transparency of products, as both consumers and producers are increasingly interested in understanding their impact on the environment.
Supply Chain Transparency
As consumer trends shift and customers demand increased accountability, food producers are under pressure to understand the environmental impact of their operations, particularly within their supply chains. Supply chain governance, environmental impacts, carbon emissions, and reputational risks are key considerations for businesses operating in today’s market. Thankfully, advancements in data platforms, systems integrations, tracking, the Internet of Things, and distributed ledger technology have led to the emergence of solutions that provide visibility across supply chains.
Vala Capital has witnessed significant growth in this sector through its existing portfolio company, Qflow, which helps the construction industry map its supply chains and ensure materials compliance. Mondra, Vala Capital’s latest investment, has developed a platform to allow food retailers to perform product lifecycle assessment in an automated way and engage suppliers to improve performance on a single interconnected platform for live product insights. It employs a cascading approach, where large retailers mandate suppliers throughout their supply chain to use Mondra’s platform, thereby driving reporting and sustainability throughout.
Data-Driven Insights for Sustainable Decision-Making
Mondra’s ambition is to disrupt the eco-analytics footprinting market by first targeting the grocery sector, offering a leading technology platform to the UK’s grocers and supermarket groups. Mondra focuses on creating transparency by measuring a product’s impact throughout its lifecycle and providing data-driven insights and benchmarks. This enables food producers to de-risk their business, compete in the NetZero economy, and manage Scope 3 emissions (these are all the indirect emissions from the entire supply/value chain). Mondra’s ultimate goal is to establish a competitive marketplace for the NetZero economy as the entire sector works towards halving its CO2 footprint by 2030 and targeting NetZero by 2050.
Transforming Sustainability into a Competitive Advantage
In the race to meet regulations and public expectations, retailers that take decisive action on climate change will gain a competitive advantage. Retailers need to consider not only their own carbon emissions but those of their suppliers and distributors. Whilst many companies have plans to control scope 1 and 2 emissions, most are struggling with scope 3. Mondra’s platform equips agile retailers with insights to target emissions throughout their supply chains and empowers them to validate supplier performance and drive improvements. This collaborative approach, known as the “cascade model”, distributes the cost of climate action across the value chain. Additionally, by providing granular, source-to-shelf insights, Mondra enables producers to prioritise initiatives with the highest returns, optimising the cost of the NetZero transition. As the market increasingly ties procurement and investments to ESG considerations, Mondra’s rigorous product footprinting allows retailers to access ESG-aligned funds by meeting stringent data quality requirements. This not only supports environmental claims and corporate reporting but also enhances overall ESG posture and investor attractiveness, providing a significant competitive advantage.
Traction
Mondra has experienced rapid growth since its product launch in 2020. The platform has garnered significant interest and traction within the UK Grocery Market, establishing contracts and exclusive negotiations with major grocers and supermarket groups. They have also been appointed the Tech Partner to a government-sponsored industry initiative in the UK Grocery sector. Due to the ‘cascade’ nature of the supply chain rollout, there are exceptionally low customer acquisition costs, high customer retention, and strong annual contract value.
Team
Mondra is a global team, operating in six countries around the world. The organisation is led by Jason Barrett, Founder and CEO, who brings 15 years of experience in software, data, and analytics. Since launching Mondra in 2020, Jason actively works to unite government, academia and industry around a unified system for rigorous environmental product footprinting.
Mondra’s innovative platform, tailored solutions, and ability to leverage data-driven insights for informed decision-making, position it as a leader in carbon management for supply/value chains across industry. We’re excited to have them as part of the ever growing Vala portfolio and can’t wait to see how it progresses!
Jonathon Spanos, Head of Venture Investment, Vala Capital
