Notch announces $10M in funding led by Portage to help hospitality businesses digitize their operations

TORONTO, Jan. 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ - Notch, a software provider to the $390B dollar wholesale foodservice industry, has raised $10M USD. The investment was led by Portage, with participation from Golden Ventures, Math Ventures, Accomplice, Pre-Cursor Ventures, Garage Capital and Plexo Capital. 

Notch, previously Chefhero, was founded as a marketplace between restaurants and  wholesale distributors. The Covid-19 pandemic provided the company with clarity on the most pressing market needs. Notch re-branded as a software solution to help restaurants digitize their back of house operations. To coincide with this new round of financing, Notch is releasing new offerings to provide a unified solution amidst the landscape of fragmented hospitality solutions. Notch is ideally suited to support the hospitality industry in the post Covid landscape.

In Q1 of 2023, Notch will be releasing its AP manager solution to help restaurants move all of their supply chain payments online. Restaurants across North America can move off of cash and cheque, and seamlessly pay their vendors through the Notch platform.

In late 2022, Notch rolled out an Accounts Receivable solution for wholesale distributors. Notch's solution automates collections, and brings payments online for distributors across North America. The company has seen an 800% year over year growth with this new product.

"I would advocate for this technology to anyone in our industry who is still putting pen to paper. While we still do business the old-fashioned way, we're using technology to help us do our jobs quicker and less administratively. Notch has freed up an unbelievable amount of time."

-  Stacey Weisberg, President of The Butcher Shoppe

As a part of this round, the company also underwent a restructuring of the team, and hired new heads of marketing, operations, and sales to focus on its new product offerings. As part of the financing, Ricky Lai, Partner at Portage, will be joining the Board of Directors at Notch.

"Notch brings simplicity and speed to the back office operations for an industry historically encumbered with lots of manual reconciliations, paper documents, and mismatches between operations and finance. We are super excited to partner with Jordan and his team on this journey," Lai said.

"It has not been an easy road for Notch, but I'm very proud of the resiliency of this team. We could not be more excited to be partnering with Portage for this next stage of growth at Notch. As our team continues to unlock digital payments and financial solutions for the foodservice industry, which has been predominantly offline,  Portage's belief that B2B Commerce is coming online aligns perfectly with our own" said CEO Jordan Huck.

Notch will use this additional funding to ramp up the sales and marketing teams, and fuel geographic expansion for the company.

Based out of Toronto, Notch provides software that make it simple to manage orders, reconcile bills and invoices and process payments all in one platform. Notch's platform delivers an end-to-end solution for back of house operations, giving foodservice owners and their staff the tools needed to automate manual tasks required to run and grow their business. Proudly partnering with restaurant groups such as Oliver & Bonacini Hospitality and wholesale distributors like The Butcher Shoppe, Notch is building towards a future where every foodservice company can seamlessly manage and grow their business operations online. For more information, visit www.notchordering.com.

Portage is a global investment platform focused on fintech and financial services with over US$2B under management, 65 portfolio companies in 13 countries, and 55 professionals across 4 countries. Our team partners with ambitious companies across all stages, through Portage Ventures and Portage Capital Solutions. We provide flexible capital and deliver a global network of investors, commercial partners, advisors, and value creation experts. With deep industry knowledge and entrepreneurial experience, Portage is committed to supporting the leaders who are reshaping financial services. Our Partnerships team focuses on long-term commercial collaboration opportunities and has generated 60 partnerships between corporate financial institutions and portfolio companies. Portage operates in the United States, Canada and Europe. Portage is a platform within Sagard, a multi-strategy alternative asset management firm with over $14B under management. For more information, visit www.portageinvest.com.

SOURCE Notch