EUROPE – Coca-Cola European Partners (CCEP), through its innovation investment fund CCEP Ventures, has invested in two delivery startups in a bid to explore use of intelligent systems in strengthening its supply chain capabilities.
CCEP Ventures has made an investment in Kol and TeleRetail, which are both using intelligent systems for drinks delivery, adopting digital-first approaches to tackle a set of common logistical challenges faced by the Coca-Cola bottler.
Kol is an innovative on-demand beverage delivery service in Paris, distributing a wide range of drinks direct to customers’ doors in just 30 minutes.
CCEP Ventures will take a 25% investment stake in the business, enabling Kol to expand its operations across major cities in France.
Kol will also benefit from CCEP’s industry knowledge and experience through access to its European-wide network, helping the company to scale more efficiently and effectively.
TeleRetail is a self-driving technology company, has developed – with the support of the European Space Agency – an autonomous robot, called ‘Aito’, which uses cutting-edge satellite imagery to deliver products quickly and safely at industrial sites and in urban areas.
CCEP Ventures will take a 15% investment stake along with a seat on TeleRetail’s board, to help support the company with its future development ambitions.
Nik Jhangiani, CFO of CCEP said; “As the pace of change in consumer behaviour and technology accelerates, we are constantly looking at ways to evolve our business and deliver a great service to our customers.
“We look forward to sharing our experiences with Kol and TeleRetail and learning from each business’s innovation.
“Through these partnerships we can ensure we are continually adapting our own established model for a digital-first world, and have an innovative new approach to getting our drinks into the hands of our customers faster.”
Pierre Nicolet, co-founder of Kol, said: “We are delighted to have CCEP Ventures as one of our preferred partners. This partnership will enable us to scale more quickly, benefitting from CCEP’s industry knowledge and experience through access to its European-wide network.
“It will also help us meet our international development ambitions, utilising CCEP’s commercial expertise.”
Torsten Scholl, co-founder of TeleRetail added: “Automating CCEP’s logistics tasks offers very interesting challenges.
“We are therefore excited to accelerate the development of a world-leading outdoor logistics automation company together with CCEP Ventures and to share our innovations, know-how and technologies.”
These partnerships are the first examples of how CCEP Ventures, which launched in February 2019 planning to invest over US$566 million (€500 million), will bring new ideas and technologies into its operations.
