Vivenda backs Ganiga as the Italian deeptech startup banks €1.5M equity for food-waste AI

Ganiga, an Italian deeptech company based in the province of Pisa, has raised €1.5 million in an equity funding round to further develop its AI-powered waste management technology and support commercial expansion. The round was led by Vivenda, an Italian contract catering company, with participation from London-based NextSTEP and three angel investors. Added to €1 million secured through Smart&Start Italia, an incentive programme managed by Invitalia, Ganiga's total funding now stands at €2.5 million.

Founded by Nicolas Zeoli, who serves as CEO, Ganiga builds technology that combines artificial intelligence, computer vision and robotics to improve waste management and cut food waste. The company started out in robotic waste sorting, developing devices that identify and separate different types of waste, and has sold more than 300 of them for use in airports, shopping centres and large businesses across Italy, Japan, Australia and other European countries.

Data gathered through those deployments underpinned the company's move into food waste. Its HooolyFood system uses cameras installed above waste containers to identify discarded food without requiring weighing, giving catering operators a picture of what is being thrown away. That data is meant to help them spot inefficiencies, sharpen purchasing and menu planning, and manage costs. Ganiga says the technology was developed in less than a year and is already deployed in operations serving more than 30,000 meals daily.

A proprietary data platform pulls information from the company's devices into a single dashboard for analysing waste patterns, estimating costs and monitoring container fill levels. Ganiga is also extending the technology toward automated ingredient ordering and menu planning, and is developing sensors for existing containers to monitor municipal and other waste streams.

The investment lands as the European Union introduces binding targets to reduce food waste by 2030. According to Eurostat, the EU generated approximately 58 million tonnes of food waste in 2023 — a figure that underlines the pressure on food services and other industries to manage waste more efficiently.

Zeoli framed the value of the product in measurement terms. "For a canteen, knowing which dishes are being wasted and why provides actionable data to inform purchasing, menu planning and service delivery," he said. "The new EU directive makes food waste reduction a binding target, and you cannot reduce what you do not measure."

With the new funding, Ganiga plans to expand its technical and commercial teams, further develop HooolyFood and its data platform, and increase recurring revenue. The company will initially concentrate on growing within contract catering alongside Vivenda, before targeting event catering, hotels and other foodservice settings.