Pleez and Volup boost catering startups

Two Portuguese startups, Pleez and Volup have joined forces to create a Food Tech Hub, the first ever hub for Portuguese startups focused on the catering and restaurant sector.

The hub aims to boost business by sharing knowledge and experiences and has already attracted the interest of several companies and already has a waiting list.
The hub, on Lisbon’s Avenida da Liberdade, is looking for startups which have “an aggressive ambition for growth” and which have closed at least one round of investment”.
In an interview with Dinheiro Vivo, Afonso Pinheiro, co-founder of Pleez said that entrepreneurs will have an office at their disposal and a knowledge share area where sharing ideas and developing an innovation community will be encouraged.
The doors are open to potential investors, fresh talent and different formats with just one golden rule “stealing talent is prohibited”.
This means that when a person is working in one of the companies, that person cannot be encouraged by another to switch companies unless it is on the person’s own initiative”.
The restaurant tech sector has various specificities that still need to be explored in a market which is vast, fragmented and with a different penetration, one where margins are small and the acquisition of clients depends on the talents of the salesman.
It is also an industry with very specific investors. Growing together in the sector and offering your peers the same opportunity is what led Pleez and Volup (founded by Álvaro Meyer) to press ahead with the project.
Pleez helps restaurants increase sales of their strategic items by up to 15% on various delivery platforms. Volup is a prime food delivery platform started in 2020 offering deliveries of gourmet groceries.