Julian Hammer is a co-founder of Choco Communications GmbH, a Berlin company in food supply chain software. He started it in 2018 with Daniel Khachab, who became CEO.
The problem was ordering. Chefs sent orders to wholesalers by phone, notes and WhatsApp messages, often late at night. Choco built a chat-style app that let restaurants order the way they already did, with no fees for them. Money came later from payment and financing services.
In 2020 restaurants closed almost overnight because of Covid lockdowns, and the customer base Choco was built for disappeared. The company shifted its focus to helping wholesalers keep selling. In 2021 a Series B of about $100 million followed, backed by Coatue, Insight and Bessemer.
By January 2022 Choco had more than 15,000 restaurants and more than 10,000 wholesalers on the platform and about 350 staff. In April 2022 a $111 million round led by G Squared and Insight Partners valued it at about $1.2 billion. In February 2023 the company cut jobs to streamline.